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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 

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* UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. | 

|3 ^^/^m^^^^^ <*.^/<«S/«»«*>«i»'* ^"SS^lEB 



*^ 



THE HEREAFTER 



SCIENTIFIC, PHENOMENAL, AND BIBLICAL 
DEMONS TEA TION 



OF 



Jl future life. 



By D. W. HULL. 




The spirit-world is not closed; 

Thy sense is closed, thy heart is dead. 



Goethe. 



The Druids had that firm opinion of the reality of the future world, 
that they would lend money on the condition that it should be repaid 
in that world, if not in coin, in what there was of equivalent value. 

Wm. Howitt's Hist. Sup. Nat., Vol. I. p. 133. 



BOSTON: <d 
WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY, 

Banner of Light Office, 
IN"o. 14 Hanover Street. 

1873. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, 

By D. W. HULL, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



The Library 
of Congress 

washington 



Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
No. 19 Spring Lane. 



M^H 



PREFACE. 



No prefatory remarks could be more appropriate 
than the following explanation of the origin of this 
book, which I take the liberty to abridge from a let- 
ter and the reply : — M. H. 



" Memphis, Tenn., Jan. 10, 1873. 

Brother Moses : . . . I am now engaged in 
delivering a series of Sunday evening lectures here on 
the Scientific, Phenomenal, and Scriptural Evidences 
of Immortality. And as I see the effect of my argu- 
ments on my large audiences, and have tested them 
with the most wily opponents, an irresistible desire 
seizes me to have them published to the world ; but 
my long sickness last autumn, added to the sickness 
of every member of my family, and the birth of one 
of my children into ' that better country,' causes my 
cruel master, Poverty, to draw the reins more tightly 
than ever before. I can not now oversee the printing 
of a book, nor raise the ' filthy lucre ' to pay for it- 
Can you help me ? If you can, I know, from the past, 
you will. The lesson of turning one empty away 
you have never learned. Will you allow me to send 
my MS. lectures to you in the rough ? Will you take 
them, revise them if they need it, and publish them 
in some form, so that the world can have the benefit 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

of them ? If you can and will, I will pay you as fast 
as I can ; if that is not in this world, you shall have it 
in the lawful currency of the hereafter. . . . 
Truly, your brother, 

D. W. Hull." 

" Boston, January 20, 1873. 

Brother Daniel : . . . Now I come to the 
business portion of your letter. If my memory were 
not long enough to grasp the many favors received 
from you in the past, it would be short indeed. Send 
your MSS. along. I will fix them up and publish them. 
Not that I want compensation in the other world, but 
to relieve me of a few things that hang over me in 
the beyond. I remember the patient help, protection, 
and instruction that flowed in one constant stream 
from you to me from as far back as memory will allow 
me to go, until in manhood our paths became diver- 
gent. ... I have not forgotten that when you 
was a poor journeyman printer, and I an Adventist 
minister, yet in my teens, your bottom dollar was 
often sacrificed to send me out to proclaim the gospel 
of destruction. Though we were in error, we were 
both deeply in earnest. Now that Ave have become 
men, and put away these ' childish things, ' I will help 
you to undo that which you helped me to do. 
I am, as ever, your brother, 

Moses." 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Development as taught by John the Baptist. — The Process. — Man cre- 
ated out of Dust. — The Child's Lesson. — God's Books. — The Cypress 
Swamp. — The Skull. — The Bed of the Niagara. — Development of Mat- 
ter. — Advantages of Speech. — Embryotic Development. — Why Mon- 
sters are born. — The Unseen. — The Rose and its Sermon. — Are Ema- 
nations tangible ? — Earth. — Water. — Steam. — Electro-Magnetism. — 
The Source of Power.— Modus Operandi of Muscular Action. — Devel- 
opment of Spirit. — Spirit Material. — Infinite Fountain of Thought. — Is 
God Spirit or a Creature ? — How are Spirits developed ? — A Demand of 
our Natures. — The Principle of Life. — The Corpse. — The Difference . 7 

CHAPTER II. 

A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED BY THE PHENOMENA OF 
OCCULT FORCES. 

A Spirit in Man. — Our Magnetic Surroundings. — Magnetic Exchanges. — 
We think through other People's Brains. — Magnetic Healing. — Un- 
conscious Action of the Brain. — Case of Suspended Consciousness. — 
Psychometry. — The Dog. — Why Females reach Conclusions quicker 
than Males. — Mind-reading. — A New Faculty to be developed. — Mind 
compared to JRadiata. — Clairvoyance. — Dreams. — Case related by Dr. 
Bushnell. — The Lawyer's Dream. — The Teller's Dream. — Intelligence 
conveyed by a Dream. —Witchcraft. — Resurrection.— Roger Williams' 
Body stolen by an Apple-Tree. — Ten Bodies : will all be raised ? — What 
is Death? — Evidences of Immortality from the Imperfection of our Or- 
ganisms. — Evidence of Dying Persons. — " Sweet Angels, I am Coming." 
— "Sainted Wife." — "Who will carry me over the Mountain?" — 
"There is Bertha." — "It is all right; I come.". 29 



b CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

Apparitions of the Living. — A Mother appears. — "Steer to the Nor'- 
west." — Different Hypotheses examined. — Apparitions in Dreams. — 
The Debt of Three- and-tenpence. — Extract from the Methodist Maga- 
zine. — Spirits correcting War Reports. — A Father appears to his Son. 

— Physical Phenomena. — Manifestations through Charles H. Foster. — 
The Memphis Appeal on the Manifestations. — Horace Greeley's Testi- 
mony. — Manifestations at Higginsville, 111. — The Raps and their "Work. 

— A Spirit settles his Estate. — Clairvoyance. — An unknown Sister in- 
troduces herself. — Miss Keyser's Manifestations. — Entrancements. — 
A Sister announces her Death. — Modus Operandi of Spirit Control. — 

Is it Magnetism? — The Watch-chain Argument. — Conclusion 56 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 

Why the Author goes to the Bible. — Materialistic Bible Writers. — Many 
of them did not believe in a Future Existence. — Job on the Witness 
Stand. — Job's Redeemer and the Worms. — Testimony of David. — His 
Character. — Solomon's Testimony and Character. — The Prophets. — 
New Testament Evidences. — A Change. — The Carnal and the Spiritual 
Man. — War between the Flesh and Spirit. — Does the dead Body arise? 
— Examination of particular Texts. — Resurrection out of the Dead. — 
Jesus and Nicodemus. — Spirit of Jesus raised. — Paul's Houses. — De- 
sire to depai t. — Who are the Demons ? — Holy Ghost, what is it ? — Pen- 
tecostal Manifestations explained. — Entrancements. — Balaam, Peter, 
Paul, John. — Chips of the old Block 102 



CHAPTER V. 

MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 

Bible Apparitions. — Samuel's Return. — Testimony of Dr. Adam Clarke. 
— Moses and Elias. — Was Jesus' Body raised? — A novel Explana- 
tion. — Representation of Jesus' Wounds. — Similar Cases. — Jesus' Ap- 
pearance to the Women. — Disagreement of the Witnesses. — Explana- 
tion. — On the Way to Emmaus. — Appearance to the Eleven. — Another 
Appearance. — Did Thomas see Jesus' Physical Body ? — What is " the 
Comforter"? — Jesus' Appearance to Paul. — The two Narratives. — 
Paul a Pharisee. — Paul's View of Jesus' Resurrection. — How is Death 
abolished? — Examination of 1 Cor. xv.— Conclusion 134 



THE HEREAFTER. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE DEVELOPMENT OF ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Development as taught by John the Baptist. — The Process. — Man created 
out of Dust. — The Child's Lesson. — God's Books. — The Cypress Swamp. 

— The Skull. — The Bed of the Niagara. — Development of Matter. — Ad- 
vantages of Speech. — Embryotic Development. — Why Monsters are born. 

— The Unseen. — The Rose and its Sermon. — Are Emanations tangible ? — 
Earth. — Water. — Steam. — Electro-Magnetism. — The Source of Power. — 
Modus operandi of Muscular Action. — Development of Spirit. — Spirit Ma- 
terial. — Infinite Fountain of Thought. — Is God Spirit or a Creature ? — How 
are Spirits developed ? — A Demand of our Natures. — The Principle of Life. 

— The Corpse. — The Difference. 

I can not better commence this chapter than with 
a quotation from the Book of books : — 

" For I say unto you, that God is able of these 
stones to raise up children unto Abraham." (Matt, 
iii. 9.) 

" But more refined, more spirituous and pure, 
As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending, 
Each in their several active spheres assigned, 
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds 
Proportioned to each kind. So from the root 
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves 
More aery, last the bright consummate flower 



8 THE HEREAFTER. 

Spirits odorous breathes : flowers and their fruits 

To vital spirits aspire, to animal, 

To intellectual ; give both life and sense, 

Fancy and understanding ; whence the soul 

Reason receives, and reason is her being, 

Discursive and intuitive ; discourse 

Is oftest yours ; the latter most is ours, 

Differing but in degree ; of kind the same." 

Raphael — Paradise Lost. 

Abraham, we are informed, " came out of Ur of 
the Chalclees." In this direction there is a possibil- 
ity of tracing the name back to India. Here we find 
the Hindoo Brahma, who seemed to be the father of 
life in India, as was Abraham among the Jews. When 
we reflect that we only have to transpose the letter 
Alepli in Brahma to make it spell Abraham, the story 
is told : the religious idea of Abraham being the father 
of the children of earth, if not borrowed from the 
Hindoos, is at least derived from the same source. 
Brahma was also the father of life in India, and the 
creator of all things, as is also God in the present 
system. But, inasmuch as it is claimed that Abraham 
is the father of all of God's children here, there is only 
a verbal difference between the two. 

THE DEVELOPMENT THEORY. 

Whether John the Baptist had received an idea of 
the development theory, or spoke " wiser than he 
knew," it is evident that modern science is demon- 
strating the truth of his assertion. For we know that 
God is able to develop humanity from the stones that 
pave our streets. John opened the door to the great 
truth that man is developed from the stones, but not 
until these stones are first refined and developed into 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 9 

higher conditions. It may have been spoken in igno- 
rance of its truth, yet it is a truth that man was 
" created out of the dust of the ground ; " that dust 
was only a higher condition of the rocks, and before 
man could have been created it must have been 
developed into vegetable matter. 

DISAGREEMENT OF THE TWO REVELATIONS . 

I am told, however, that this work was all accom- 
plished within a very recent period — six thousand 
years ago, according to our biblical chronology. But 
I inquire by what authority the Bible says so, and I 
am again told that the Bible was written under dicta- 
tion of God himself, and whatever is there is written 
by his authority. I have no escape from my doubts. 
While I am contemplating the matter, a little girl runs 
to me with a smooth stone from a babbling brook. 
I look at it, and find it quite round and polished. I 
ask at once, "Who made this?" She answers, in 
her lisping way, " I spects Dod made it." " If God 
made it," I reflect, " how did he make it? He must 
have put it through some sort of a process, as our 
mechanics would have done. Where are the mills 
of God, by which he does such beautiful work?" 
But the child takes me to the brook, and here I see 
the mills of God at work. Stones of every grade — 
those which are most smoothly polished, and those in 
the crudest condition — are being moved and turned 
against each other by the pressure of the running 
water. The angular corners are being worn off from 
the rough stones, and the smooth ones are being still 
more evenly rounded. Here is the "mill of God" 
for which I was inquiring ; but how many millions of 



10 THE HEREAFTER. 

years it must have taken to work on that little stone 
before it assumed its perfect shape ! But stop ; there 
is something in the stone : it looks like a shell of a 
small mollusk of the sea. I take a hammer and break 
the stone, and find it full of those little shells. I 
again ask the child, — 

" Who put these little shells in this stone ? " 

She again answers, " I spects Dod put them 
there." 

I know he did. Here, then, in this stone, small 
as it is, I have another book, and I know God 
wrote it, for no other person could write such a 
book. But this little book demonstrates that many 
millions of years ago God took the soft sediment, and 
filled it full of shells that had once encased living 
beings, and put them all through it, and then closed 
the book, cemented its leaves, and sealed it with the 
great seal bearing his monogram, which, without 
translation, will be intelligible to all nations and 
tongues. 

Now, if the first book is God's, it will harmonize 
with the last. 

God has been writing all over our earth, and in 
every leaf of this world-book we find a contradiction 
to the Bible. When in the cypress swamps of the 
Mississippi valley we find the bones of a man that have 
been left there a great period, and when we count 
those cypress swamps, and learn that God has raised, 
matured, and rotted five cypress swamps over the 
grave of this skeleton, and the sixth swamp is past its 
prime, — knowing that it takes ten thousand years to 
mature one, we can not escape the conviction that the 
man who left his skeleton for us to look at must have 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 11 

lived here fifty-seven thousand years ago. But when 
we go to Florida, and find a skull there one hundred 
and thirty-seven thousand years old, we know that 
God never was the author of the idea of the recent 
creation of our earth. We find traces of man which 
show that he lived here on earth before the glacial 
period. Lyell demonstrates that that was eighty or 
a hundred thousand years ago ; but I don't care to 
make it that old for my present purpose. There is 
an old channel of the Niagara River which seems to 
have been filled up during the glacial period. In 
consequence, the Niagara has had to cut another — a 
new bed. In cutting that bed, it has been compelled 
to cut away rocks, as it is doing now. Since it com- 
menced cutting it has cut back from the junction of 
the old channel the distance of eleven miles. It is 
known to cut back now at the distance of eleven 
inches per year, so that it would take it over five 
thousand years to cut back one mile, and a little over 
sixty thousand years to cut back eleven miles. If it 
has done all this since the glacial period, and man 
was here before that time, it demonstrates not only 
that the world is more than six thousand years old, 
but that the human race is much beyond that. I am 
compelled to believe these records, because their 
author is the creator of the world. 

USES OF EARTHQUAKES. 

Passing through one of your valleys, I hear a rum- 
bling sound like thunder ; the ground, also, seems to 
tremble under my feet. It is the shock of an earth- 
quake. In a few days it is repeated ; houses are 
thrown down and lives are destroyed. I take myself 



12 THE HEREAFTER. 

away from the scene of danger, but remain near 
enough to be an observer. In time a mountain is 
reared, and a furious volcano breaks forth, sending 
up its tongues of fire, smoke, and ashes. The great 
rock -ribs of the earth rub their broken sides together, 
grinding each other into a fine soil, which is sent up 
amid the smoke, and ashes, and mud, and water, con- 
tinually belched forth. This pulverized rock now 
becomes a coarse soil, and if I put some of it in an 
urn and plant an acorn, or a seed of any kind, it will 
only grow a dwarf ; but each time the soil has grown 
into vegetation and gone back again, it has been 
raised in the scale of development, and it is capable 
of producing better vegetation than it was the last.* 

But while this process is going on in the little urn 
that I have saved, a process of development is going 
on in another direction. The earth ground from the 
stones of the mountain is being washed towards the 
sea, there to again spring into animal and vegetable 
life. 

We go to bayous of salt or fresh water located out 
of reach of the winds, and we find conditions some- 
what favorable to the development of animal and 
vegetable life. Floating there appears to be a speck 
which we are at a loss to locate, as it seems to be 
neither animal nor vegetable, but a little of both. 
Another speck, however, floats near it, and we see a 
prolongation of one of its sides until it actually ex- 
temporizes an arm, which reaches out and draws in 

* Perhaps it would be well to state that soil is educed from rocks 
in several ways — by glaciers, early forms of vegetable life, and the 
action of water and the atmosphere upon them. The process above 
is given because it is more easily comprehended. 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 13 

the speck near by it ; then it becomes all mouth, and 
envelopes it. But now that the mouth has performed 
its part, there is no need for that any longer, and the 
little sarcoid becomes a stomach, and the speck thus 
taken in and enveloped undergoes a sort of digestion, 
and becomes a part of the little polyp. After it 
grows large enough, if you tear a little piece off, you 
will find that not only the original will live, but the 
piece you have torn off will commence to operate in 
the same way that its parent did. 

It would take a great many generations before it 
began to have protrusions for the arms and a cavity 
for the mouth, but eventually not only would this be 
the case, but it would assume a kind of an envelope 
on its outside, which would either become hard and 
horn-like, or cartilaginous. From this, eventually, 
we should have a higher order of existence, and in a 
few thousand years, again, we should have another 
still higher order evolved from these. Thus we find 
a regular succession from the cartilaginous fish up to 
man. From this little cryptogam we first, after a 
long series of efforts, pass through the cartilaginous 
state, and reach the first order of vertebrata. There 
are developments from this till we come to air-breath- 
ing animals, who, swimming with their heads out of 
water, ever and anon make efforts to ascend higher 
in the air. The effect of this is to develop wings, 
while, at the same time, another order of the verte- 
brata have become land animals. We then reach the 
next higher order of animals in the winged vertebra- 
ta ; one step higher takes us to the marsupial animals, 
and the next step takes us to mammals : here we find 
the highest order of beings beneath man. This part 



14 THE HEREAFTER. 

of creation, intellectually, is far beneath man. There 
is a demand with them which has only been supplied 
to man, and without it they have no means of associ- 
ating ideas with each other, and therefore no means 
of further development. 

THE ADVANTAGES CONFERRED BY HUMAN SPEECH. 

Suppose the powers of speech were to be bestowed 
upon your horses or your dogs ; how many genera- 
tions until you would find them manifesting certain 
powers of mind ? The horse's master wishes a certain 
job of work done, and gives his horse his reasons for 
it, and the faculties develop for combined generations. 
As it is, we have domesticated these animals till they 
understand many things we say ; but if they could 
only exchange ideas with us, they would give us an 
opportunity to teach them still more. 

On the other hand, let us suppose that when to- 
morrow morning's sun shall rise, it shall find that the 
whole human family has lost the powers of speech ; 
not only the powers of speech, but powers of talking 
by deaf and dumb signs, which but for the gift of 
speech we never should have had. The papers would 
publish it all over the world, and we should each read 
it at the breakfast table, and learn that our neighbors 
were all afflicted as we are, but we should have no 
means of associating ideas only by the pen. We 
should manage to get along for one generation, but 
the next would not know how to read, and could not 
learn without oral instruction. In consequence of 
this we should have no more use for printing presses, 
men would soon forget how to make machinery with- 
out instruction, and each individual would be driven 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 15 

to look directly to his own individual wants, without 
any reference to the wants of his neighbor. At this 
rate it would be but a few generations till the strong- 
est men physically would take possession of our 
houses, and drive the weakly ones (who are gener- 
ally the most intellectual) out of doors to perish. 
But at the same time these houses, too, would perish ; 
the art of agriculture, to a certain extent, would be 
lost ; and men would be driven to prey upon wild 
animals for their subsistence. They would climb 
trees for game, burrow in the earth for shelter, kill 
each other off for coveted objects, and become like 
the wild animals about them. If the loss of speech 
would result in all of this, may we not suppose that 
the gift of speech to the highest order of intelligences 
would bridge the chasm between the highest order of 
animals and the human species ? I am not looking 
for the " connecting link" between man and inferior 
animals ; I do not just now want it. I only want 
to show the advantages man has derived over the 
lower order of animals by virtue of this gift. 

EMBRYOTIC DEVELOPMENT. 

Now, I will follow the process of development from 
another stand-point. Let us commence with the 
beginning of human life, the foetus. The first sign of 
life which we see manifested is a small speck, not 
unlike, in appearance, the sarcoid of which I spoke 
on a former page. Other cells are added to it, and 
the process of development begins, and as it devel- 
ops it begins to change. The law of evolution, which 
has given us such a high order of existence, is now 
working in the embryo. The vertebrata is at length 



16 THE HEREAFTER. 

reached, and thus the development goes on till we 
reach another step on the ladder of progress. Finally, 
man is reached.* This will account for monsters who 
are born into the human family. Men are born with 
gill-marks on their neck, showing that the process of 
development had been partially arrested in that part 
of the body, so that it was not perfect. In a neigh- 
borhood near where I lived when I was a boy, a child 
was born with the head of a squirrel ; and I read of 
another that had a serpent's head when it was born, 
and would put out its tongue after the most approved 
serpent fashion. Fortunately neither of these chil- 
dren lived but a short time. Now, in these two in- 
stances the process of development had been arrested 
at the head ; in one instance very early in the devel- 
opment, in the other at a later period ; while the de- 
velopment of every other part of the body continued. 
Monsters are never born with organizations beyond 
the human race, for they can not well develop be- 
yond. The fact that monsters are always caused by 
the cessation of development of certain parts of the 

* "The ovum, destined to become a new creature, is originally 
only a cell, with a contained granule." — Vestiges of Creation, p. 89. 
It is only in recent times that physiologists have observed that 
each animal passes, in the course of its general history, through a 
series of changes resembling the permanent forms of the various 

orders of animals inferior to it Nor is man himself exempt 

from this law. His first form is that which is permanent in the ani- 
malcule. His organization gradually passes through conditions gen- 
erally resembling a fish, a reptile, a bird, and the lower mammalia, 
before it attains its specific maturity. At one of the last stages 
of this foetal career, he exhibits an intermaxillary bone, which is 
characteristic of the perfect ape ; this is suppressed, and he may 
then be said to take leave of the simial type, and become a true 
human creature. — Vestiges of Creation, p. 103. 



ANIMAL AND SPIBITUAL LITE DEVELOPED. 17 

organization, would establish, if we had no other evi- 
dence, that the embryo developed through all these 
lower animals, and therefore, at some period in ani- 
mal life he has lived in these several forms. I have 
traced this line of argument to prepare the reader for 
my argument on the development of spirit. I shall 
not be compelled to be so tedious in handling that 
part of my subject, now that this is established. 

Before I pursue this further I must take my readers 
with me for a moment to 

THE UNSEEN. 

Thus far we have dealt with matter which we 
could feel and see. Now let us go a step beyond. A 
single drop of water ; I can see through it and it 
looks perfectly pure. Nothing shades the rays of 
light which pass through it. But I put it under the 
glass of a microscope and the drop of pure water has 
developed to a little world, teeming with life, — mon- 
sters preying upon each other, as some of our land- 
sharks, that wear broadcloth and gold spectacles, are 
wont to do at times. Had it not been for our micro- 
scopes we should never have known of the existence 
of this part of the world. How do we know that 
there are not creatures still more minute, who are 
entirely out of the reach of our microscopes ? The 
earth, air, and water are full of life, of which, but 
for the microscope, we should be entirely ignorant. 
Who shall say that there may not be other objects 
about us beyond the reach of our natural vision ? 

Let us take for illustration a rose, which I may 
find upon my table in my room. Putting it on the 
balances, I ascertain its weight, and then hold it up to 
2 



18 THE HEREAFTER. 

my nose. I pronounce it very fragrant : I ascertain 
this because the rose has imparted some of its odor, 
which is really a part of the rose. After I have done 
admiring, perhaps twenty individuals will each of 
them take it, and each pronounce it fragrant. But I 
put it in the balances, and I find that though we had 
all partaken of its emanations it has lost none of its 
weight. 

Now, what is this odor that arises from the rose ? 
You can not see it, feel it, or hear it ; it has no sensi- 
ble weight, nor diminution. We can only come in 
contact with it through the olfactories, and this leaves 
us so in doubt about the aroma, that we can only 
express our admiration. We know there is an aroma, 
although we may not see it or come in contact with 
it by any other of our physical senses. Now, if we 
should meet a man without this sense, we should 
have no means of demonstrating the existence of this 
intangible element. May not this emanation really 
be a higher condition of the rose, as real and tangible 
to higher order of developments as the rose itself is 
to us ? 

Now that we have spoken of the rock-ribs of earth, 
let us return to a further contemplation of the sub- 
ject. From the earth we may reach a higher condi- 
tion in water ; for it is capable of holding in solution 
all the primates of our earth. Water is a higher con- 
dition than the earth, and is more powerful. Earth 
is inanimate, and incapable of raising any great power 
in any short period of time. Its power must be 
evolved by a gradual process. But in water, this 
refined condition of the elements, the power is in- 
creased. A given amount of water will manifest a 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 19 

certain rate of power, which can be used for the pur- 
poses of running machinery. But now take a portion 
of this water and develop it to a still higher condition, 
and you have steam. By this process you have inten- 
sified the power a hundred-fold. But what is steam ? 
You can not see it when it is first liberated. You 
only know of its existence from its effects, or by see- 
ing the vapor it causes by mingling with the atmos- 
phere. It is really a spiritual condition of the water, 
and as we refine the water, we raise it to a higher 
condition. I take steam again, however, and unite it 
with caloric, and I have another time intensified this 
power a hundred-fold ; I now have electro-magnetism. 
How much further we can go on intensifying this 
power no one can tell ; but we have ascertained that 
the more we spiritualize the forces, the more we in- 
crease the power. Now, we can not see these forces. 
They are only known by their effects. From this we 
reach another conclusion, and that is, that 

ALL POWER INHERES IN SPIRIT. 

To illustrate : I have an osseous, muscular, and ner- 
vous system, which seems to hold the same relations 
to me that rock, earth, and water do to our world. 
Now, there is no power in either. Neither my bones, 
muscles, nor nerves, can raise my arm ; yet I can 
raise it. But by what means? Ah, there is something 
behind all organization and combination of matter, in 
which the power is situated, and which holds it under 
control, and uses it as you would use the lever and 
fulcrum for the removal of objects too ponderous to 
be moved by hands. 

Passing from the nervous system, we reach a higher 



20 THE HEREAFTER. 

condition of nervine in the brain, which appears to be 
composed of nerve fibers, so intensely refined that if 
it was drawn out it would reach quite round our 
globe. And yet I can not find the power situated 
here. For the brain can not grind out thoughts, as 
Elder Miles Grant asserts. If it could, there could be 
no association of ideas. I could give you an idea 
only as it was put in and ground out, as the miller 
puts his grist in the mill to grind out flour. This I 
should have to do by mixing the proper nervine in 
your food ; but as I can not make you think as I please 
in that way, I am compelled to look up a more suc- 
cessful way. I must talk to you, and convey my ideas 
to the outward senses by words. This association of 
ideas determines to us that man has something exist- 
ing back of the organism which controls the brain. 
This I term spirit. " There is a spirit in man," says 
Elihu, " and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth 
them understanding." Before I can raise my arm, my 
spirit must operate on the brain, the great galvanic 
battery of my system, controlling that in such a way 
as to send out telegrams through my whole nervous 
system. The nerves, in turn, act upon the muscles in 
such a way as to cause them to contract, and shorten 
up the cords necessary to raise my arm ; and thus 
my arm, nerves, muscles, and bones are all elevated. 
My spirit now holds magnetic control of my body in 
this way, and manifests its power through my organ- 
ism. But for the spirit controlling this system I 
should have no power — should be entirely inert. 

DEVELOPMENT OF SPIRIT. 

I come, now, more directly to the subject of the 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 21 

development of the spirit. All I have written was 
only to prepare the ground for the argument now to 
be made. Let us take the proposition laid down by 
Des Cartes. " I think; therefore I am." Here is an 
axiom upon which there can be no dispute. We 
might have the same bodies composed of the same 
flesh and blood that we now have, but we could have 
no evidence of it unless it were demonstrated to our 
thinking faculties. Thinking, then, is the basis of 
our existence, for all that there is of us is that which 
is comprehended within our thoughts. 

OF WHAT IS THE SPIRIT COMPOSED? 

But what do I think ? Why, thoughts, of course. 
But what is thought ? Thought is a bundle of spirit 
fibers or elements. Inasmuch as my body is sup- 
posed to contain all the sixty-four primates of matter, 
and is an epitome of all animal nature beneath me, 
so is my spirit composed of thoughts. But these 
thoughts could not exist if they were not developed 
from spirit matter. Having established the proposi- 
tion that I think, I demonstrate that there is a world 
of spirit matter : you may call it latent intelligence, 
if you wish. 

If there had not been the elements of matter out of 
which to compose my material body, I never should 
have had one, for something can not be developed 
from nothing. The very fact that my body is, estab- 
lishes the fact that there must have been elements 
out of which my body was made. And also the fact 
that my mind exists demonstrates the fact that there 
are elements out of which mind has been created ; for 
something can not be made from nothing. If the 



22 THE HEREAFTER. 

materialist should demonstrate that brain ehminates 
thought, he will demonstrate the fact that that 
thought was latent, either in the food that he eats, 
the air that he breathes, or some other invisible agent 
that enters into his composition. And thus he de- 
monstrates the very thing which I am trying to 
prove. 

INFINITE SOURCE OF THOUGHT DEMONSTRATED. 

If this thought is thus created out of spirit matter, 
as the very proposition that we think demonstrates, 
we have reached another fact ; and that is, that if we 
think thoughts, there is, somewhere, an infinite source 
of thought. That the union of these thoughts demon- 
strates intelligence none will deny. I have been re- 
ported an atheist ; it has been asserted that I do not 
believe in a God. By this time my readers will know 
better. I may not believe in a God of infinite wrath 
and malevolence, as the clergy do, or a God ivith pas- 
sions and emotions such as men have here, but I 
believe that God is, notwithstanding. It is well 
known that Kant found a negative to every proposi- 
tion by which the existence of a God is established, 
and hence I do not feel like saying much about him. 
If he is infinite I can not describe him ; if he is all- 
wise I can not comprehend him. If the theologian 
can describe his God, I only have to say that, sooner 
or later, people will outgrow him, and he will be 
compelled to share the fate of all his predecessors. I 
know God exists, because as a thinker I exist, and the 
thinking I must have been drawn from some source 
of intelligence, which I, for want of a more expres- 
sive term, call God. Some individuals know of the 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 23 

existence of a God, because they feel him. This can 
be evidence to none other except the one who has the 
experience. Because I do not believe in a personal 
God, Elder Grant maintained that I did not believe 
in a God at all. But I claim that I believe more in 
God than does the elder. A personal God is just as 
much of an organization as a human person, and Elder 
Grant and his friends contend that God must have his 
thoughts ground out through his brain. So, if his 
brain was to accidentally become injured, his thoughts 
woultl not be produced so effectually as if his brain 
were perfectly harmonious. We are all more or less 
like the elder in this respect; for we all anthropo- 
morphize our deity and make him as near like our- 
selves as possible. The elder's views of God are only 
the orthodox views gone to seed. 

GOD IS EITHER A SPIRIT OR CREATURE. 

But all organisms suppose something anterior to 
the structure of their organization. I have before me 
a watch. This watch marks the time for me, dividing 
each day into an equal number of hours. I perceive, 
at once, that this organic structure came into exist- 
ence for the purpose of answering a certain end. Or- 
ganized beings never happen. There are but two 
ways that they can come. One is through the devel- 
opment of the elements of which they are composed ; 
the other is by special creation. Now, if God is a 
person, or is even endowed with the peculiarities with 
which theologians credit him, it is demonstrated at 
once that he has come into existence either through 
development or by creation. For the organic struc- 
ture of the brain, drawn from material elements, 



24 THE HEKE AFTER. 

could not always have existed in their present form, 
since to deprive matter of the powers of change is to 
deprive it of life. If the elements of God's body 
and brain were drawn from matter in order to its or- 
ganic structure, it develops the fact that long before 
the production of this organic structure, there were 
elements out of which to produce it ; and since 
thought is only eliminated through (or hy) the brain, 
it demonstrates that there was a time when God could 
not think. But long before this there were in exist- 
ence the elements of thought ; for if there had not 
been, thought would never have been developed. 
Now, this fact demonstrates that I believe in a God 
who existed not only long anterior to Elder Grant's 
God, but one without which the elder's God would 
never have had an existence ; for if he had not de- 
veloped out of my God, then this Being, which I 
have found existing long anterior to organization of 
matter, must have created him. In any event, so 
far from my disbelieving in a Deity, I believe that 
all the little churchal and mythological gods — if ever 
they existed — have been made either out of him, or 
by him. 

HOW ARE SPIRITS DEVELOPED ? 

The question now comes concerning our spirits : 
How do they come into existence ? I have already 
told you what thought is — a bundle of spirit fibers. 
I believe spirit to be a bundle of thoughts — or ideas, 
if you Avish. Let us take the child to start our spirit. 
Starting with one thought, which is attracted to the 
brain for the purpose of manifesting itself through 
matter (as we can prove that the spiritual education 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 25 

must be built on a material education), it finds itself 
unequal to the task without another thought to aid 
it. This renders it negative to the spirit matter about 
it, for there is a want in its nature which can only 
be supplied by elements of spirit such as are neces- 
sary to compose another thought ; hence just such 
forces as are necessary for this other thought are 
attracted. But the spirit elements of a second 
thought can not well concentrate without carrying 
with them other elements. And again, we should 
find a want in this newly-formed spirit, for the want 
of other elements to make a harmony with these al- 
ready centered together. The best illustration I can 
give of this is to state that the process of spirit devel- 
opment is in no way unlike the development of the 
human species. Commencing with the embryo, which 
is only a single cell, like the commencement of the 
spongiole, we trace the development on and on until 
we have reached man. So, commencing with the cel- 
lular structure of the spirit, We continue to ascend 
higher and higher, until we arrive at the loftiest 
angel who assists in the development of the lower 
orders of beings. 

Now, man has in his nature a constant demand for 
something just beyond. He is not satisfied with his 
present status. We all feel that we are imperfect, 
and this very feeling is a constant draft on spirit mat- 
ter for the elements we so much need to harmonize 
and perfect our spiritual organizations. But so soon 
as we shall have attained this, the very elements we 
have obtained will not only bring a want with itself, 
but it will enable us to realize that there are other 
wants in our natures, and this longing desire will con- 



26 THE HEEEAFTEE. 

tinue to reach out to them until they are attained, 
and so on ad infinitum. 

THE PEINCIPLE OF LIFE. 

These thoughts can not be seen. They are only 
felt. Yet the only evidence we have of the principle 
of life is manifest in this way. This life we can not 
see, yet it is so connected with the elements of spirit, 
that unless you have the one, you can not expect the 
others. Here are two acorns : one of them I give to 
a chemist, who pulverizes it — analyzes it. He tells 
us such a percentage of it is composed of hydrogen, 
such another per cent, of it is composed of carbon, 
and perhaps there is a small percentage of it oxygen 
and other elements and gases. But there is one 
thing which has escaped his notice. That was the 
life which escaped from the acorn when he pulverized 
it. I take the good acorn, however, and plant it, and 
I have demonstrated that the life germ of the stately 
oak was incased in that tiny shell. He has destroyed 
the life principle in the acorn without discovering it, 
but I have preserved and developed it in the little 
seed that I planted. This is one of the hidden forces 
of nature, and demonstrates that there are properties 
beyond the crucial tests of scientific men. Again, we 
demonstrate another fact, or the same fact over. If 
there were not the elements of life to draw from, the 
acorn would never have been enabled to collect w 7 ithin 
itself those elements. If this principle of life is not 
the same in essence as spirit, it is entirely in harmony 
with it. Else we should have spirit outside of life, 
which is impossible.* 
* Lest the captious reader should deny that intelligence exists in 



ANIMAL AND SPIRITUAL LIFE DEVELOPED. 27 

I will not now take time to cany this argument 
out, and demonstrate immortality from it, as this part 
of the argument may be treated in the discussion of 
the next phase of the subject. One more illustration 
of this principle, which we all acknowledge, and I 
will give you a rest. 

There is taken into your church, for the funeral 
rites, the body of one of your citizens. You look 
upon it, and see the limbs which were active in life 
now motionless ; his eyes see not, his ears hear not, 
nor does his heart beat. You have all known him 
familiarly by the name of John, and you all say John 
was a good man. You say was, not is ; for all that 
made John good has gone, and only the body, through 
which he manifested this goodness, remains. You 
formed your estimate of the man, not on account of 
his beautiful organic structure, which, to be sure, never 
fails to please the ideal, but from something within 
the man which you could not see. That unseen prin- 
ciple which you so much admired and loved was that 
which used the body before you to such happy effect 
in this world. 

After you have tired looking at his exjDressionless 
countenance, you say, " Take away this body, and 
bury it; it is a solemn mockery ! Since the escape of 
that principle there is nothing left of it for me to ad- 
life, I will ask his careful attention to a chapter entitled " Do Plants 
Think?" in pp. 203-213 of the To-Morroiv of Death, by Louis 
Figuerer. I doubt whether plants think as we do, since thought can 
not well he outwardly manifested without cephalization. But that 
there is spirit matter about plants enough to direct them in their 
motions there can be no doubt. This intelligence is different, how- 
ever, but not so much so as it is outside of organic structure. 



28 THE HEREAFTER. 

mire." Ah ! all that you loved of John has gone, and 
yon love him still ; but you never cared for his body 
only as it could be used by his spirit for the manifesta- 
tion of good. Now, shall we suppose that all that we 
loved — all that by which John identified himself to 
us as a good man — died with the body ? No ; when 
the body he was using became unfit for his service, 
and he could no longer use it, he left it and ascended 
higher, where he could be clothed with his spirit 
body, and continue the work so graciously commenced 
here. 

You do not measure your friends and neighbors by 
the size or appearance of their bodies. You say 
neighbor such a one is a good man because there is 
something behind his material organism pushing him 
forward to do good deeds. You do not so much ad- 
mire the instrument through which these deeds are 
done, as you do the motive power that caused them 
to be done. Yourselves being witness, there is an 
unseen principle with each and every one of your 
neighbors which determines your estimation of their 
characters. That this principle lives I shall try to 
establish in succeeding chapters. 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 29 



CHAPTER II. 

A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED BY THE PHENOME- 
NA OF OCCULT FORCES. 



A Spirit in Man. — Our Magnetic Surroundings. — Magnetic Exchanges. — We 
think through other People's Brains. — Magnetic Healing.— Unconscious 
Action of the Brain. — Case of Suspended Consciousness. — Psychometry. — 
The Dog. — Why Females reach Conclusions quicker than Males. — Mind- 
reading. — A New Faculty to he developed. — Mind compared to Itadiata. — 
Clairvoyance. — Dreams. — Case related by Dr. Bushnell. — The Lawyer's 
Dream. — The Teller's Dream. — Intelligence conveyed by a Dream. — 
Witchcraft. — Resurrection.— Roger Williams' Body stolen by an Apple Tree. 

— Ten Bodies : will all be raised ? — What is Death? — Evidences of Immor- 
tality from the Imperfection of our Organisms. — Evidence of Dying Persons. 

— " Sweet Angels, I am Coming." — " Sainted Wife." — "Who will carry me 
over the Mountain?" — " There is Bertha." — " It is all right: I come." 



" There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of 
the Almighty giveth them under standing." (Job 
xxxii. 8.) 

This language was used by Elihn, a heathen poet, 
in the presence of Job and his two friends. It appears 
that one calamity after- another had befallen Job, un- 
til he was entirely stripped of his property, and whol- 
ly bereft of his family. The two friends who visited 
and tried to comfort Job appear to have been min- 
isters, in some respects not unlike the clergymen of 
our times. They tried to convince him that all these 
calamities had been judgments of God visited upon 
poor Job for his sins. Job denied the charge, and 
claimed that his moral character would compare very 



30 THE HEREAFTER. 

favorably with theirs. He referred to several in- 
stances of his charity, and claimed that he had been 
guilty of no crime. With all his real and alleged 
crimes, he seems to have been a materialist. Not until 
after he effectually silenced his two clerical friends did 
Elihu attempt to speak : and he introduces his speech. 
For he well knew that such an apology was necessary 
if he undertook to do what the" others failed in doing. 
So he says, " I am young, and ye are very old ; where- 
fore I was afraid, and durst not show you mine opin- 
ion. I said, days should speak, and multitude of years 
should teach wisdom." But lest the question may be 
asked if he ever attended a theological institution of 
learning, he proceeds to tell them that man has a spir- 
itual nature which can get understanding by coming 
en rapport with the eternal I AM. 

This power of coming en rapport with the beyond is 
pertinent to this subject ; therefore I have quoted it. 
It was by virtue of this spiritual nature that he as- 
sumed to speak on subjects beyond the mental grasp 
of the theologians of his day. 

OUR MAGNETIC SURROUNDINGS. 

Permit me to demonstrate the truth of the above 
assertion, and I will do it by unseen forces, which are 
now generally acknowledged to exist. The first force 
to which the reader is introduced is \ magnetism, or mes- 
merism, which is precisely the same thing. 

We all hold certain relations to each other, and 
sustain these relations by an unseen principle, which 
we find hard to describe. We often form our likes 
and dislikes of an individual merely from coming 
within his or her atmosphere. The reason of this is, 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 31 

that there are certain unseen elements in each per- 
son's magnetic surroundings which are either benefi- 
cial or pernicious to us. For we are constantly 
throwing off magnetism which is now no longer use- 
ful to. us, and inspiring new in its stead. I have al- 
ready showed you the development of the body, how 
it was made of the food we eat, the air we breathe, 
&c. But as we develop within we must throw off 
outwardly. We not only do this in a material sense, 
but there are unseen forces continually in and around 
us, undergoing the same process. 

MAGNETIC EXCHANGES. 

Now we have a surplus of some kinds of magnet- 
ism, or some magnetic elements, while there is a want 
of other elements. We find others who have a sur- 
plus of that which we need, while they are in need 
of that which is going to waste in our constitutions. 
Wherever two such individuals meet, they can not 
help feeling a sort of attraction for each^ other. It is 
on the same principle of our attraction for a leafy 
grove in summer. We have a surplus of carbon with- 
in our systems, while the grove is continually inhal- 
ing that element and expiring oxygen, and both are 
benefited by the exchange. 

WE THINK THROUGH OTHER BRAINS THAN OUR OWN. 

This magnetic principle enables one individual to 
come so en rapport with another as to get the control 
of his or her organism, and use it for the expression 
of his or her thoughts. If I should get thorough 
magnetic control of an individual in an audience, I 
am enabled to think through that individual's brain, 



32 THE HEREAFTER. 

and speak my thoughts through his organism, in just 
the same way that I control my own organism. The 
reason I can think, write, and speak is, because I am 
in constant rapport with my brain. I am a spirit 
as much as I will ever be, only that I am compelled 
to give material expression to my ideas, in order to 
be comprehended by those who are in the material. 
Spirit is built upon matter, and as we can not be pre- 
pared for a spiritual education until we have laid the 
material groundwork, it is necessary that we should 
remain en rapport with a material organism until we 
have finished our education on that plain. Now, if I 
should pass to the spirit world, the marks of dissolu- 
tion having begun in my body as soon as I have left 
it, it is impossible for me to get control of the nerve 
forces so as to give expression of my thoughts to the 
outward senses of individuals in earth life. The only 
thing I can do is to hunt up a medium — one whose 
brain is plastic, and get psychological control of the 
brain of the medium. This I can do either by psy- 
chologizing the spirit of the medium, or securing its 
temporaiy absence ; then I can use the organism to 
give expression to my thoughts. 

I have taken some pains in my observance of this 
phenomenon, and I find that nearly every class of 
manifestation of a mental nature comes through the 
mediumship of the brain. Let us take an instance 
of mechanical spirit writing ; the hand and arm be- 
come stiff, and pass entirely beyond the control of the 
medium, and yet a writing is produced — the hand- 
writing corresponding to the handwriting of the de- 
ceased individual whose name is attached at the end 
of the article. It is evident that the writer never 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 33 

could have produced the writing except by getting 
thorough control of the nervous system, and he could 
only reach that through the mecliumship of the brain. 
Notwithstanding, the brain has been made the medium 
of the control of the nervous system, not one word 
of the communication passed consciously through the 
brain of the medium. I am now writing as if Spiritual- 
ism were taken for granted ; if any should feel like 
disputing this point, I will, for the sake of argument, 
grant that the dead are unconscious. But magnetism 
is clearly established as a fact, and few, if any, will 
be prepared to dispute that. If, then, I am able to 
think through another individual's brain, and give 
material expression to my thoughts, without physical 
contact, it demonstrates the truth that the I, that 
does this thinking, is superior to the brain of the me- 
dium I use ; for if the brain ground out thought, I 
could have no way of reaching the brain of the medi- 
um with that thought only by bringing that thought 
in physical contact with the brain. If a thought of its 
own volition passes across the space which separates 
me from the medium, the fact by that act becomes es- 
tablished that thought is an entity, which can force 
itself upon the brain. Now, the thinking lis entire- 
ly made up of these entities, and as each one of them 
has power to force itself upon the brain of media, 
it looks as if that were their customary way of mani- 
festing. The /that does the thinking for my organ- 
ism, is superior to the brain, through which thought is 
eliminated. 

MAGNETIC HEALING. 

Let us take another class of experiments. An in- 
3 



34 THE HEREAFTEK. 

dividual has a severe attack of rheumatism. The 
magnetizer approaches him, and makes certain passes 
with his hands over the affected part, and it is better. 
For the sake of the experiment he is required not to 
touch the patient ; yet the effect is more than could 
be expected from any medicine. What does it ? 
Why will the patient get better under this treat- 
ment when all other remedies fail? We can't see 
the magnetism unless by clairvoyant vision, and we 
have no way of distinguishing it as a force only by 
the effects produced. Here is a power, then, by 
which certain physical results are effected, almost en- 
tirely under the control of the mind. If mind thus 
controls these forces, then it demonstrates the fact 
that these forces may be used for the perpetuity of 
our existence after the death of our bodies. 

"UNCONSCIOUS ACTION OF THE BRAIN. 

As I could not introduce the " unconscious action 
of the brain " in the proper place in this book, I shall 
be compelled to notice it here. The reader well 
knows that as he goes home from his day's work, 
though his mind may be absorbed with the subject- 
matter of a conversation with some one, he will turn 
all the corners just right, and arrive home almost as 
well as if he had concentrated his mind on the sub- 
ject. Now, there is a way of explaining ; every 
occurrence is governed by law, whether that law is 
understood or not. Scientists tell us it is a latent 
thought in the brain. But what stimulates that latent 
thought into action? Is it not just as easy to think 
that that is the grand thought of the spirit, it having 
magnetized the brain thoroughly with that idea, and 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 35 

set it going just right to make those turns in the proper 
place, though the mind is absorbed in other things ? * 
Many mechanical movements of our bodies seem like 
a piece of machinery ; set in motion, it makes so many 
strokes in a certain direction, when, by some mechani- 
cal contrivance, a reversion of the action of the 
whole machinery effects an entire change. 

Just here an objector said to me, " I have an objec- 
tion ; it is as follows : A hod-carrier was at one time 
carrying some brick up a ladder, when the masons, 
being out of brick, called out, ' More brick.' But be- 
fore he could respond to the demand, a brick fell on 
his head, and he was carried home senseless. He re- 
mained in a semi-idiotic state for about seven years, 
when the physicians, merely for an experiment, tried 
to raise the part of the skull that was broken. They 
succeeded, and the moment the brain was relieved 
of its pressure, the man uttered the words, ' Ay, 
ay, sir ! ' which were supposed to have been in re- 
sponse to the demand of seven years previous." In 
this instance it is supposed that the brain resumed 

* It has been observed that wild deer will pass over precisely the 
same strip of ground, where, perhaps fifty years previous they had 
a trail — though the woods have been cleared away, and all signs of 
the trail across fields, highways, &c, have been obliterated by the 
enterprise of civilization. What is stranger than this is the fact 
that birds of passage will invariably find the same invisible trail 
through the air. There is only one known law by which this class 
of phenomena may be accounted for ; that is, that an invisible some- 
thing never fails of being constantly thrown off from each body, 
which always remains to a certain extent in the place where it was 
left, and which never fails of attracting affinities. If this principle 
holds good, we may yet account not only for the above phenomena, 
but many others. Probably these feelings are somewhat the cause 
of our veneration for old home associations. 



36 THE HEEEAETEK. 

the current of its thoughts just where it left off, seven 
years before. Now, I find it a great deal easier to be- 
lieve that this thought was retained by the spirit, than 
that the brain manufactured the thought and retained 
it seven years. Let us suppose that thought proceeds 
from spirit ; would it not be much easier to suppose 
that a message had been dictated seven years before, 
and would take its turn in the message department, 
than to suppose that the brain ground it out, but the 
grist was never received until seven years after? The 
natural conclusion, however, would be, that the spirit 
touched the part of the brain necessary to make this 
response, but failed. Having failed once, it would try 
the same thing over again and again, thus experi- 
menting upon the same words during the whole time. 
The consequence would be that the whole atmosphere 
about the individual, and especially that part of the 
brain, would be impregnated with those words ; and 
although he individually might actually forget the 
demand that had been made seven years before, he 
could not help making the response which is printed 
all over his magnetism, for his being would be 
thoroughly psychologized with these words. You 
could understand the idea better if I were to illustrate 
it by a musical instrument. If one of the ke} T s were 
to be injured, a musician would find it impossible to 
produce perfect music with it, although the music 
may have been in the individual's mind. Now, the 
brain is operated on somewhat like a key-board. If 
any of the organs of the brain are injured, the spirit 
finds it a matter of impossibility to reproduce the 
thoughts which are eliminated by this part of the or- 
gan of the mind. 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 37 



PSYCHOMETRY. 

Another unseen force may be observed in Psychom- 
etry, sometimes termed " mind-reading." Perhaps 
all have observed the faculty so prominent in dogs. 
It has generally been supposed that the dogs scent the 
track of such animals as they wish to capture. But 
I find it very hard to believe that the olfactories of a 
dog are so refined as to scent out and distinguish his 
master's tracks from a hundred or a thousand others, 
who, perhaps, have passed in every direction across 
his master's track since it was there. Let us suppose 
that there is a magnetic aura attending each individ- 
ual, as unlike any other person as is his character, 
and that the dog has a spiritual sense so refined as to 
distinguish these as he would his master's face or 
voice ; we can then understand how easy it would be 
for a sensitive animal, if fully developed in that facul- 
ty, to distinguish these, one from the other. " But," 
I think I hear it objected, "you are not going to 
argue that dogs have immortal spirits — are } r ou? " I 
will not undertake to tell what is in the future for ani- 
mals ; but I can not see why they should not have. 
That they have this life is certain, and I can under- 
stand no law by which it can be dissipated. 

ANOTHER ILLUSTRATION. 

I will take another illustration. A gentleman in- 
vites a stranger to his house, and introduces him to 
his wife as Mr. A. During the interview, the lady 
catches enough of the conversation to understand that 
Mr. A. and her husband are talking about entering 
into partnership. She, not being favorably impressed 



38 THE HEREAFTER. 

with him, improves the first opportunity to talk the 
matter over with her husband. The conversation 
would run about as follows : — 

Wife. You are not going to enter into a partner- 
ship with that man — are you ? 

Husband. Why, yes ; we are talking a little about 
it! 

W. Well, I would not have much to do with him. 

IT. Why not? 

W. Because I do not believe he is an honest man, 
and I am afraid he will cheat you. 

H. Why do you not think he is honest ? He has 
as good references as there are in the world. 

W. I can't help it. I do not believe he is honest. 

H. But why do you question his honesty ? 

W. I don't know ; somehow I feel that he is not 
all right. 

It may take this man several years to learn that 
what his wife felt was true ; but sooner or later, he 
learns, by bitter experience, that she felt Mr. A.'s 
moral condition. She was not able to give any rea- 
son for her suspicions, only that she felt there was 
something wrong with the gentleman. That was all 
she knew about it. The truth is, this man carried 
the defects of his moral character in his magnetic sur- 
roundings, and when the lady came in contact with 
him, she felt that there was something wanting, and 
that sooner or later it would manifest itself. But this 
fault in his character could only be manifested to 
those who had a power beyond the five senses. Such 
persons will solve one of your life problems without 
a thought, the truth of which it will take you months 



A FUTCJRE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 39 

to demonstrate, thus developing a faculty within her 
beyond the reach of your fine senses. 

MIND-READING. 

I know a lady who will take any fragment of stone 
you may give her, and describe the country in which 
you got it ; there are some who will take up a piece 
of writing, and m describe the author as correctly as 
could be done by his most intimate friends. Permit 
me to say right here, that this power is only found 
amongst Spiritualists. Ministers assert that it is 
" mind-reading." If so, why is it not found in the 
churches ? Some of them profess to explain it upon 
scientific laws: why, then, do they not allow the 
science cultivated in their churches ? Every one 
knows that it would be worth any person's position 
in his church to have such a faculty developed in 
his organism. Dr. Graves, of Memphis, denounced 
me as an infidel for my explanations of these phe- 
nomena, yet his explanations of the manifestations of 
Spiritualism will explain away every jot and tittle of 
the New Testament. If this mind-reading is a science, 
and Spiritualists are developing it, why is it that this 
reverend denouncer wages such a warfare upon them ? 
He knows nothing of these things, only as he learns of 
Spiritualists. Should this development continue, he 
will continue to be dependent on Spiritualism for 
every fact he may get. 

A NEW ORGANIC FACULTY IN PROCESS OF DEVELOP- 
MENT. 

I believe there is a development now going on in 
the human mind : if it does not develop a duplicate 



^™ 



40 THE HEREAFTER. 

of each of the five senses, it will succeed in develop- 
ing entirely a new faculty. It will be remembered 
that in the preceding chapter I hinted that this devel- 
opment always extends towards the supply of the wants 
of the individual. In future illustration I will say, the 
radiata are compelled to send out feelers toward the 
five points around them, that they may draw in such 
elements as are necessary to their higher development. 
I do not know that here is a prophecy of the five 
senses. But I ascend a grade higher, and I find another 
animal entirely dependent on feelers which it sends 
out before it, so it may feel its way. As thus you as- 
cend the grade, there would come a period when these 
tentacles would become very sensitive to every object 
coming within their touch. A very little higher, and 
these tentacles become sensitive to the light, and ob- 
jects reflecting the light would throw that reflection 
upon these feelers, and they would get the impression 
of the object before they came in reach of it. From 
this it would be very easy to continue this development 
until we had a perfect eye. The human family, I 
sometimes think, hold the same relation to some fu- 
ture period of the human race that the star-fish does 
to the present race of men. We are just beginning to 
realize that there is a spiritual atmosphere, and we 
are putting forth our feelers to ascertain what there 
is in the Beyond. As everything develops on the line 
of its attraction, there must come a time when this 
spiritual want of our natures will be supplied. Hence 
the time must come when men will see spirits and talk 
with them as naturally as they hold intercourse with 
their fellow-mortals. It is in such strict harmony 
with science, that I have no means of avoiding the 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 41 

conclusion. And not only that, but there is a cor- 
responding development of the spirit world. For 
while, like a tottering child, we are reaching to the 
next highest point above us, we find angel hands 
reaching with parental fondness toward us. I be- 
lieve this communion will become more intimate, and 
our perceptions will become brighter, till in time we 
shall discover that now and then we are only gathering 
up a few pebbles while the great ocean of truth shall 
remain before us unexplored. And as we shall step 
into the margin of its clear waters, we shall get a 
faint glimpse of the work of eternity unfolding be- 
fore us. 

There is another force, in some respects unlike the 
one I have been writing of, but which demonstrates 
itself to be no less a spiritual faculty than those to 
which I have referred. It, too, is a science found 
solely amongst Spiritualists, and is called 

CLAIRVOYANCE, OR CLEAR SEEING. 

I need not demonstrate that there are persons who 
can see through the walls of a house, and tell how 
the furniture is arranged within, or tell jou if your 
physical organs are not properly doing their work. 
They will tell what organs are deranged. These facts 
are being demonstrated in almost every neighborhood, 
and nobody that cares for a good reputation as a reader 
and thinker would venture to deny them. In order, 
however, to show what prejudice will do for a man, 1 
quote the following extract from " The Footfalls on 
the Boundary of Another World," p. 94. 

" When I was in Paris," says Rogers (the poet) in 
his " Table Talk," " I went to Alexis and desired him 



^■i 



42 THE HEREAFTER. 

to describe my house in St. James' Place. On my 
word he astonished me ! He described most exactly 
the peculiarities of the staircase ; said that not far 
from the window in the drawing-room there was a pic- 
ture of a man in armor (the painting by Georgione), 
and so on. Colonel Gurwqod, shortly before his death, 
assured me that he was reminded by Alexis of some 
circumstances that had happened to him in Spain, 
and which he could not conceive how any human 
being, except himself, should know. Still I can not 
believe in clairvoyance, because the thing is impossi- 
ble." 

All our knowledge has been obtained through the 
mediumship of the five senses, and the man who can 
not rely upon them is in a desperate condition indeed. 
This clairvoyance demonstrates that individuals may 
see without eyes. 

DREAMS. 

There is often something peculiar in dreaming — 
something which seems to transcend all known laws 
governing our organism. Many of our most imperfect 
dreams are stimulated by a disordered stomach. The 
query often arises, Is there such a thing as a dream- 
less sleep ? This is often answered in the affirmative. 
The most we can say on this subject, after all, how- 
ever, is, that we do not remember to have had a dream 
at certain times, when we have been known to sleep ; 
but since there are many of this very class who talk 
in their sleep, and walk in their sleep, which could 
not be done without a corresponding action of the 
mind, we may safely conclude that it is very possible 
to forget our dreams. My brother Moses, when a 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 43 

boy, and working at the carpenter's trade, used fre- 
quently to get up in the night, and walk about, talking 
with different ones ; but in the morning he could not 
have the least recollection of what had transpired in his 
sleep. One morning he was perfectly astonished to find 
a bunch of shingles on a large barn he had carried up 
in his sleep. I need not say that it took some persua- 
sion on the part of his co-laborers to convince him that 
he performed that feat whilst he was taking his usual 
exercise during his sleep. 

HELP AMXD SNOW-DRIFTS. 

Dr. Bushnell, on pp. 475, 476, of his book, "Na- 
ture and the Supernatural," tells the following story 
of Captain Yount, of Napa Valley, California, whose 
character and integrity are vouched for in the strongest 
terms. The story was related to him by Captain 
Yount in person, and the fact is known to the whole 
community. It is also quoted in Owen's " Footfalls," 
p. 457. 

" About six or seven years previous, in a midwin- 
ter's night, he had a dream, in which he saw what ap- 
peared to be a company of emigrants, arrested by the 
snows of the mountains, and perishing rapidly by cold 
and hunger. He noted the very cast of the scenery, 
marked by a huge perpendicular front of white rock 
cliff. He saw the men cutting off what appeared to 
be tree-tops rising out of deep gulfs of snow. He dis- 
tinguished the very features of the persons, and the 
look of their particular distress. 

" He awoke profoundly impressed with the distinct- 
ness and apparent reality of this dream. At length 
he fell asleep, and dreamed exactly the same dream 



44 THE HEREAFTER. 

again. In the morning he conld not expel it from his 
mind. Falling in shortly with an old hunter com- 
rade, he told him the story, and was only the more 
deeply impressed by his recognizing, without hesita- 
tion, the scenery of the dream. This hunter had come 
over the Sierra by the Carson Valley Pass, and de- 
clared that a spot in the pass answered exactly to his 
description. By this the unsophisticated patriarch was 
decided. 

" He immediately collected a company of men, with 
mules and blankets, and all necessary provisions. The 
neighbors were laughing meantime at his credulity. 

" ' No matter,' said he ; 'I am able to do this, and I 
will, for I verily believe that the fact is according to 
my dream.' 

" The men were sent into the mountains, one hun- 
dred and fifty miles distant, directly to the Carson 
Valley Pass; and there they found the company in 
exactly the condition of the dream, and brought in 
the remnant alive." 

It would be somewhat difficult to make a clear case 
of mind-reading in this instance, unless he had gone 
there as a spirit, which may be probable. But this 
would supersede the necessity for mind-reading. 

There are several points in this case which it would 
be well not to overlook. 1st. Captain Yount knew 
of no such pass. Hence his dream was not the re- 
sult of anything he had heard or seen. 2d. He obtained 
a knowledge of their suffering condition only by means 
of his dream, and but for that they would have per- 
ished. Here, then, is a clear case of a man who re- 
ceived his knowledge of a locality and its surroundings, 
and the suffering people in it, by some kind of a force 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 45 

outside of his five senses. 3d. He found on his arrival 
at this scene of suffering that he had not made a single 
mistake in his dream. Now, how happens it that he 
should dream out all these facts, and who imparted 
them to him ? 

THE LAWYER'S DREAM. 

Abercrombie, in his " Intellectual Powers," p. 222, 
cites the following case of a distinguished lawyer. It 
is reproduced by Hon. R. D. Owen on p. 127 of his 
"Footfalls." 

14 This eminent person had been consulted respect- 
ing a case of great importance and much difficulty, and 
he had been studying it with intense anxiety and at- 
tention. After several days had been occupied in this 
manner, he was observed by his wife to rise from his 
bed in the night, and go to a writing-desk which stood 
in the bed-room. He then sat down and wrote a long 
paper, which he carefully put by in the desk, and re- 
turned to bed. The following morning he told his 
wife he had had a most interesting dream ; that he had 
dreamed of delivering a clear and luminous opinion 
respecting a. case which had exceedingly perplexed 
him ; and he would give anything to recover the train 
of thought which had passed before him in his sleep. 
She then directed him to the writing-desk, where he 
found the opinion clearly and fully written out. It 
was afterward found to be perfectly correct." 

THE TELLER'S DREAM. 

On p. 205 of the same book another account is 
given of the dream of a teller of a bank in Glasgow. 
It is also quoted in " Footfalls," p. 163. 



46 THE HEREAFTER. 

" The gentleman was at the time connected with 
one of the principal banks in Glasgow, and was at his 
place at the teller's table, where money is paid, when 
a person entered demanding payment of a sum of six 
pounds. There were several persons waiting, who 
were in turn entitled to be served before him ; but he 
was extremely impatient and rather noisy, and being, 
besides, a remarkable stammerer, he became so an- 
noying that another gentleman requested my friend to 
pay him his money and get rid of him. He did so 
accordingly, but with an expression of impatience at 
being obliged to attend to him before his turn ; and 
he thought no more of the transaction. 

" At the end of the year, which was eight or nine 
months after, the books of the bank could not be made 
to balance, the deficiency being exactly six pounds. 
Several clays and nights had been spent in endeavoring 
to discover the error, but without success, when, at 
last, my friend returned home, much fatigued, and 
went to bed. 

" He dreamed of being at his place in the bank, and 
the whole transaction with the stammerer, as now de- 
tailed, passed before him in all its particulars. He 
awoke under the full impression that the dream was 
to lead him to the discovery of what he was so anx- 
iously in search of ; and on investigating, he soon dis- 
covered that the sum paid to this person, in the manner 
now mentioned, had been neglected to be inserted in 
the book of interests, and that it exactly accounted 
for the error in the balance." 

INTELLIGENCE CONVEYED BY A DREAM. 

One day last April, 1 872, Mrs. S. J. C, a lady in whom 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 47 

I had great confidence, as also had all her acquaintan- 
ces, said to me, — 

" I must tell you a dream I had three weeks ago. 
It seemed that I was at home in New England, and 
carrying a bucket full of water, when I heard a voice 
crying, i Somebody is dead ! ' The voice was so sud- 
den that it startled me, and it seemed that I dropped 
my bucket, which awakened me. But I went to sleep, 
and the dream was repeated. About a week after- 
ward I received a letter from my mother, informing 
me that my father had died on that same night." 

Enough on this subject. All must be convinced 
that there was a happy coincidence between the 
dreams and the facts. The evidence of design was 
never more complete. 

WITCHCRAFT. 

. Another peculiarity, where persons were supposed 
to transcend their natural powers, is the case of the 
Salem witchcraft. Cotton Mather, who caused more 
witches and wizards to be punished than any one 
else, tells some curious stories about them. He tells 
us that some of his servants were bewitched, and that 
they were able, under the spell, to talk Latin, Greek, 
and Hebrew, quite as fluently as he could. In their 
normal state they knew nothing of these languages. 
Here was a power similar to that with which the apos- 
tles were endowed in early times ; and what better 
evidences did he want that a witch-finder was needed ? 
But at that time it was a sign of apostleship ; now it 
was entirely the reverse. 

The very fact that this power is manifested in the 



— — 



48 THE HEREAFTER. 

unfortunately bewitched ones of that time establishes 
that there is something in the unseen which must come 
in magnetic rapport with us, and talk through our 
organisms. 

Just here a few thoughts on the resurrection will 
not be amiss. I believe in a resurrection from the 
dead, but not of the dead. The reason I do not be- 
lieve in a resurrection of the dead, is because I con- 
ceive it to be utterly impossible. Take the case of 
Roger Williams, which was referred to by the papers 
a few years since. They had undertaken to remove 
the body ; but when they dug down into the grave, 
they found no body there. An apple tree that stood 
at the head of the grave had sent out a root, which, 
entering his head, passed down his spine, sending out 
branches for each limb of his body. This tree had ac- 
tually filched away his body, and reproduced it in the 
fruit of the tree, which had actually been eaten by the 
visitors at the grave of the first governor of Rhode 
Island. Now, inasmuch as the materials of Roger 
Williams' body had gone to make up other organ- 
isms, what will Roger Williams do, in the resurrection, 
for a body ? These men who may have the right in 
possession of his body will hardly be willing to give 
up the little of it he may claim, for if they should it 
would establish a precedent requiring them to give 
away by littles until the whole body is gone ; and then 
what would they do ? 

Science teaches that our bodies are always dying 
and going away from us, and new bodies are constantly 
being created for us, which take the place of the old 
ones, which have died ; that each day a certain portion 
of our bodies is eliminated, and the place supplied 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 49 

with new material. The reader may test this at any- 
time by rolling up one of his sleeves, and damping the 
other hand, and rubbing energetically the bare arm. 
Small particles of what has once been the flesh and 
blood of the individual will be rolled out from be- 
neath the surface of the skin, If the experimenter 
will save all this exhausted matter, with the parings 
of his finger nails and the cuttings from the hair, and 
put it in an urn, he will find that once in about six or 
seven years he will have materials of an old body 
fully equal in weight to the present one. In the course 
of a lifetime he will have had about nine different 
bodies, besides the one which dies last ! When I ask 
which of my bodies will be raised, I am answered, the 
last one. Very well ; then it would be just like one 
of the devil's tricks to go and raise the other nine 
bodies, and then what a quarrel we should have about 
who should go to heaven or that other place as the 
representative of D. W. Hull ! 

Death is a separation of the particles, and whenever 
the body has lost its life, it is unfit for the use of the 
spirit. Then the spirit, which can not die, must at- 
tract to it the particles of another body, adapted to the 
higher wants of the individual. 

I hold that inasmuch as the spirit is composed of 
spirit elements, these elements can not be separated 
without pain ; and as the soul naturally shrinks from 
suffering and pain, and as every attempt at a dissolution 
inevitably causes pain, it is utterly impossible for the 
spirit ever to be destroyed. 

Inasmuch as the spirit was composed of particles of 
spirit matter, which came in answer to the demand of 
spirit, and this want ever continuing to attract spirit 
material, the conclusion is inevitable that the spirit will 



50 THE HEREAFTER. 

ever continue to renew itself so long as there shall be 
a want in its nature, I therefore conceive the spirit 
to be immortal. 

EVIDENCE OF DYING PERSONS. 

I will now pass to notice another kind of evidence. 
How often has it been the case that persons with the 
full powers of their mind, in every sense of the word, 
tell us, as they near the river of death, of the beauti- 
ful sights beyond ! Sometimes they seem to be half 
across the river, in sight of the other shore, yet in 
hearing of this, when to those left behind pointing out 
here and there on the shore the form of some loved 
one waiting to greet them when they shall press the 
soil of immortality. 

SWEET ANGELS, I AM COMING. 

FROM THE INDEPENDENT. 

" Do they want me up in heaven? Can you tell me, mamma dear, 
"What those strange and solemn voices mean that in the night I hear, 
Softly saying, ' Come, dear children ; for of such our kingdoms are? ' 
Do you think they want me yonder? Is it very, very far? 

" O, I hear such heavenly music; and there's something all in white 
Comes and stands beside my little bed, and makes the room so light 
That I look at you and papa, and at brother Georgie, too, 
Wondering you can sleep. But maybe it's for me, and not for you. 

" And they clasp their arms about me, and I do not think of pain, 
For I close my eyes and listen till the music comes again. 
They are calling me so tenderly, I know I can not stay 
Only just a little longer, till the coming of the day. 

" Mamma, kiss me ! Papa, hold me ! Clasp my hands so close and 

strong 
That I may not lose your presence in the glory of the throng 
Who have come to take me from you, and will wait for you again, 
When dear Jesus says, 'Come higher I Joy receive for grief and 

pain.' 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 51 

" There is something I must tell you ere I go, if you can hear: 
I shall tell them how I loved you; they can never be more dear; 
And perhaps they'll let me see you, when you think I'm far away, 
And will let me guard and guide your steps from evil day by day. 

" When you pray, I may be listening, and my heart will thrill with 

joy- 
If you fail and sin — God help us ! — it will crush your darling boy. 
I shall draw you to me softly, as the angels take me now." 
So the little voice is silenced, and the stricken mourners bow. 

I was once a materialist. I believed there was no 
future life until the resurrection of the body. My 
wife's sister, Miss Martha Murphey, entertained the 
same belief. One morning I was sent for to come to 
her bedside, as she was dying. When I got there she 
had lost control of the physical organism, and was 
soon with the risen angels. What was strange to me, 
however, was, that her last words were in response to 
the beckoning angels. She had gone too far to speak 
back to the weeping ones, and she left as a memento 
of the happy reception awaiting her, the words, 
" Sweet angels, I am coming ! " And from that time 
until tJje present moment has this glorious gospel of 
immortality echoed back to me, starting the life-blood 
anew, and quickening my whole being. 

" SAINTED WIFE." 

Bishop Cummings, of St. Paul's Church, Louisville, 
Ky., relates the following case of awakened spiritual 
vision : — 

" An old man, who died not long since, for hours 
before the final struggle fixed his eyes upon a form in 
the room, invisible to all but him. It was a form he 
knew, and upon it he gazed, without the power of 



52 THE HEREAFTER. 

those present to change his vision. It was known upon 
whom those dying eyes were so intently fixed when 
the trembling lips, for the last time, syllabled the name 
of his sainted wife, who had long preceded him to the 
grave. Who doubts that her spirit was there to con- 
duct his to the better world ? The rod and the staff 
were there to comfort the good old man, and he feared 
no evil in the valley of the shadow of death. The 
living, flushed with life, may not see these ministering 
spirits around the bed of death ; but we know not in 
what way death's approaches may prepare the dying 
for the sight of those ethereal forms that inhabit other 
spheres. They may sometimes be at the rod and the 
staff which make death but a shadow — which comfort 
the dying, and make them to fear no evil." 

"WHO WILE CARRY ME OVER THE MOUNTAIN?" 

The following I clipped from a paper several years 
since : — 

" A few years ago, in a New England village, a lit- 
tle boy lay on his death-bed. Starting suddenly up, 
he exclaimed, ' O, mother, mother ! I see such a beau- 
tiful country, and so many little children, who are 
beckoning me to them ! but there are high mountains 
between us, too high for me to climb. Who will 
carry me over ? ' After thus expressing himself, he 
leaned back on his pillow, and for a while seemed to 
be in deep thought, when, once more arousing, and 
stretching out his little hands, he cried, as loud as 
his feeble voice would permit, c Mother, mother, the 
strong man's come to carry me over the mountain.' 
He was peacefully asleep. The strong man had indeed 
come to carry the little one over." 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 53 

In a work entitled " Looking Beyond," by J. O. Bar- 
rett, many similar circumstances are described, some 
of which I will here repeat. 



" Rachel Colburn, of Geneva, Wis., seventeen years 
old, when conscious of death's call, said to all, ' Good 
by — come to me. O, yes ; I see now ; there is Ber- 
tha [her sister's departed child]. She can walk 
now. There is David's father [her mother's first 
husband, whom she had never before seen] , and there 
is Mrs. French's child. Why, these little babes have 
silver bells in their hands ! ' 

" ' Kiss him for me,' said Mrs. French. 

" ' O, yes, I will,' said Rachel; and the kiss on those 
spirit lips was so sweet that earth was forgotten, for 
-she was in heaven."- — Looking Beyond, p. 76. 

"IT IS ALL EIGHT : I COME." 

" When the beloved Judge Wheelock, of Rockford, 
111., was ready to exchange worlds, he exclaimed, 
4 What light is that ? ' On being informed there was 
no light in the room, he said, 4 Ah, but I see a bright 
light.' Then clasping his hands, he said, c It is all 
right: I come.' Soon he roused up, and said, ' Charles ! 
Charles ! ' His son-in-law, whose name is Charles Lew- 
is, went to him and said, ' What do you want, father? 
Here I am.' He opened his eyes, and cried out with a 
loud voice, ' Charles Wheelock ! Charles Wheelock ! ' 
and immediately ceased breathing. Charles Wheelock 
was a son of his who died in California some years 
ago." — Looking Beyond, p. 81. 



54 THE HEREAFTER. 



WHY THE DYING SEE. 

There are cases similar to that which has been wit- 
nessed everywhere. The dying see : having lost sight 
of earthly things to a certain degree, the spirit seems 
to be quickened, so that, as they lose their hold here, 
they grasp more firmly that life which is above. It 
seems that as the body grows weak, and becomes 
negative, angels have more power to throw them- 
selves before our spiritual vision, and having phy- 
sical strength left, we hand back the messages we 
are receiving from the other side. O, what a happy 
sight it must be, as our boat nears the other shore, to 
see the eager ones waiting for us ! O, 

" Who will greet me first in heaven, 

When that blissful realm I gain, 
When the hands have ceased from toiling, 

And the heart hath ceased from pain, 
When the last farewell is spoken, 

Severed the last tender tie, 
And I know how sweet, how solemn, 

And how blest it is to die ? 



As my bark glides o'er the waters 

Of that cold and silent stream, 
And I see the domes of temples 

In the distance brightly gleam, — 
Temples of that beauteous city, 

Erom all blight and sorrow free, - 
Who adown its golden portals 

First will haste to welcome me ? 



Ah, whose eyes will watch my coming, 
From that fair and beauteous shore ? 

Whose the voice I first shall listen, 
That shall teach me heavenly lore ? 



A FUTURE LIFE DEMONSTRATED. 55 

When my feet shall press the mystic 

Borders of that better land, 
Whose face greet my wandering vision, 

Whose shall clasp the spirit hand? 

Who will greet me first in heaven? 

Oft the earnest thought will rise, 
Musing on the unknown glories 

Of that home beyond the skies. 
Who will be my heavenly mentor? 

Will it be some seraph bright, 
Or an angel from the countless 

Myriads of that world of light? 

No, not these, for they have never 

Dawned upon my mortal view ; 
But the dear ones gone before us — 

They the loved, the tried, the true. 
They who walked with us life's pathway, 

To its joys and griefs were given, 
They who loved us best in earth-land 

Be the first to greet in heaven." 

Allie Wellington. 



56 THE HEREAFTER. 



CHAPTER III. 

PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 

Apparitions of the Living 1 . — AMother appears. — " Steer to the Nor'-west." — 
Different Hypotheses examined. — Apparitions in Dreams. — The Debt of 
Three- and-ton pence. — Extract from the Methodist Magazine. — Spirits cor- 
recting War Eeports. — A Father appears to his Son. — Physical Phenome- 
na. — Manifestations through Charles H. Foster. — The Memphis Appeal on 
the Manifestations. — Horace Greeley's Testimony. — Manifestations at Hig- 
ginsville, 111. — The Raps and their Work. — A Spirit settles his Estate. — 
Clairvoyance. — An unknown Sister introduces herself. — Miss Keyser's 
Manifestations. — Enhancements. — A Sister announces her Death. — Modus 
Operandi of Spirit Control. — Is it Magnetism ? — The Watch-chain Argu- 
ment. — Conclusion. 

" There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual 
body." (1 Cor. xv. 44.) 

Thus far in our argument we have developed the 
fact of the existence of an unseen force independent 
of any organism. It shows that man has two ele- 
ments — one called natural, the other spiritual ; one 
of the earth, the other from heaven. 

APPARITIONS OF THE LIVING. 

Now I will try to demonstrate from actual experi- 
ences, that there are two bodies. I will first give a 
few narratives on the phenomena of apparitions of the 
living, and after I have demonstrated by good wit- 
nesses that living persons are frequently seen at a 
distance from their bodies, I will offer such explana- 
tions as seem pertinent. 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 57 

While I could relate many cases that have come 
under my immediate notice, I prefer to quote exten- 
sively from Hon. Robert Dale Owen's books, on ac- 
count of the well-known reputation of the author, 
and the care which he has manifested in the investi- 
gation of the truth of the narratives he relates. 

APPARITION OF MOTHER. 

The following narrative I find in " Footfalls," * pp. 
343, 344. 

Tins, Mr. Owen tells us, was related to him in 
person, by the lady who saw the apparition, who is 
now the wife of a distinguished professor, residing 
near London. 

" In November of the year 1843, Miss H., a young 
lady, then between thirteen and fourteen years of age, 
was on a visit to a family of her acquaintance (Mr. 
and Mrs. E.), residing at their country seat in Cam- 
bridgeshire, England. Mrs. E. was taken ill ; and 
her disease assuming a serious form, she was recom- 
mended to go to London for medical advice. She did 
so ; her husband accompanied her ; and they left their 
guest and their two children, the youngest only ten 
weeks old, at home. 

" The journey, however, proved unavailing ; the 
disease increased, and that so rapidly, that after a 
brief sojourn in the metropolis, the patient could not 
bear removal. 

" In the mean time the youngest child, little Fan- 
nie, sickened, and after a brief illness died. They 
wrote immediately to the father, then attending on 

* Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World. J. B. Lippincott 
& Co., Philadelphia. 



58 



THE HEREAFTER. 



what lie felt to be the death-bed of his wife ; and he 
posted down at once. It was on Monday that the 
infant died ; on Tuesday Mr. E. arrived, made ar- 
rangements for the funeral, and left on Wednesday to 
return to his wife, from whom, however, he concealed 
the death of her infant. 

" On Thursday Miss H. received from him a letter, 
in which he begged her to go into his study and take 
from his desk there certain papers which were press- 
ingly wanted. It was in this study that the body of 
the infant lay in its coffin ; and, as the young lady 
proceeded thither to execute the commission, one 
of the servants said to her, 4 O, miss, are you not 
afraid?' She replied that there was nothing to be 
afraid of, and entered the study, where she found the 
papers required. As she turned, before leaving the 
room, to look at the babe, she saw, reclining on a 
sofa near to it, the figure of a lady whom she recog- 
nized as the mother. Having from infancy been ac- 
customed to the occasional sight of apparitions, she 
was not alarmed, but approached the sofa to satisfy 
herself that it was the appearance of her friend. 
Standing within three or four feet of the figure for 
several minutes, she assured herself of its identity. 
It did not speak, but, raising one arm, it first pointed 
to the body of the infant, and then signed upward. 
Soon afterward, and before it disappeared, the young 
lady left the room. 

" This was a few minutes after four o'clock in the 
afternoon. Miss H. particularly noticed the time, as 
she heard the clock strike the hour a little before she 
entered the study. 

" The next day she received from Mr. E. a letter, 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUEE LIFE. 59 

informing her that his wife had died the preceding 
day (Thursday), at half past four. And when, a few 
days later, that gentleman himself arrived, he stated 
that Mrs. E.'s mind had evidently wandered before 
her death ; for, but a little time previous to that event, 
seeming to revive as from a swoon, she had asked her 
husband . 6 why he had not told her that her baby 
was in heaven.' When he replied evasively, still 
wishing to conceal from her the fact of her child's 
death, lest the shock might hasten her own, she said 
to him, ' It is useless to deny it, Samuel, for I have 
just been home, and have seen her in her little coffin. 
Except for your sake I am glad she is gone to a bet- 
ter world.' Very shortly after this she expired." 

There are some coincidences connected with this 
that are not always to be found in marvelous stories 
of the kind. Miss H. could possibly have been de- 
ceived, and Mrs. E. might have been dreaming, or 
under a temporary derangement of the mind ; yet it 
is hardly probable that Mrs. E. should have imagined 
that she should be looking at her babe in the coffin 
precisely at the time Miss H. imagined she saw her by 
the coffin, and that Mrs. E. should imagine her babe 
was dead and in a coffin at that particular time, when 
she could as easily have imagined anything else con- 
cerning it. 

" STEEE TO THE NOE'-WEST." 

The following narrative I find on page 333-340, of 
" Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World." Mr. 
Owen says that the narrative was communicated to him 
by Captain J. S. Clarke, of the Julia Hallock, who had 
it. directly from Mr. Bruce himself. Captain Clarke 



60 THE HEKEAFTEE. 

assured Mr. Owen that " Bruce was as truthful and 
straightforward a man as ever he met in his life." 
They were as intimate as brothers, and had been to- 
gether in the same vessel for about seventeen months. 
Mr. Bruce " always spoke of the circumstance in 
terms of reverence, as of an incident that seemed to 
bring him nearer to God and another Avorld." "I'll 
stake my life on it," said he, " that he told me no lie." 

Mr. Robert Bruce, originally descended from some 
branch of the Scottish family of that name, was born 
in humble circumstances about the close of the last 
century, at Torbay, in the south of England, and 
there bred up to a seafaring life. When about thirty 
years of age (in the year 1828), he was first mate on 
board a bark trading between Liverpool and St. 
John, N. B. 

On one of her voyages, bound westward, being then 
some five or six weeks out, and having neared the 
eastern portion of the Banks of Newfoundland, the 
captain and mate had been on deck at noon, taking 
an observation of the sun, after which they both de- 
scended to calculate their day's work. 

The cabin, a small one, was immediately at the stern 
of the vessel, and the short stairway descending to it 
ran athwart-ships. Immediately opposite to this stair- 
way, just be} r ond a small, square landing, was the 
mate's state-room, and from that landing there were 
two doors close to each other, the one opening aft 
into the cabin, the other fronting the stairway into 
the state-room. The desk in the state-room was in 
the forward part of it, close to the door, so that any 
one sitting at it and looking over his shoulder could 
see into the cabin. 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 61 

The mate, absorbed in his calculation, which did 
not result as he expected, varying considerably from 
the dead-reckoning, had not noticed the captain's 
motions. When he had completed his calculations, 
he called out, without looking round, — 

" I make our latitude and longitude so and so. Can 
that be right ? How is yours, sir ? " 

Receiving no reply, he .repeated his question, glan- 
cing over his shoulder, and perceiving, as he thought, 
the captain busy writing on his slate. Still no an- 
swer. Thereupon he rose, and, as he fronted the 
cabin door, the figure he had mistaken for the captain 
raised its head, and disclosed to the astonished mate 
the features of an entire stranger. 

Bruce was no coward, but, as he met that fixed 
gaze looking directly at him in grave silence, and be- 
came assured that it was no one whom he had ever 
seen before, it was too much for him, and, instead of 
stopping to question the seeming intruder, he rushed 
upon deck in such evident alarm that it instantly at- 
tracted the captain's attention. 

" Why, Mr. Bruce," said the latter, " what in the 
world is the matter with you ? " 

" The matter, sir ? Who is that at your desk ? " 

" No one that I know of." 

" But there is, sir ; there's a stranger there." 

" A stranger ! Why, man, you must be dreaming. 
You must have seen the steward there, or the second 
mate. Who else would venture down without orders ? " 

" But, sir, he was sitting in your arm-chair, front- 
ing the door, writing on your slate. Then he looked 
up full in my face, and if ever I saw a man plainly 
and distinctly in this world I saw him." 



62 THE HEKEAFTEE. 

"Him! Whom?" 

" Heaven knows, sir ; I don't. I saw a man, and a 
man I had never seen in my life before." 

^ You must be going crazy, Mr. Bruce. A stranger, 
and we nearly six weeks out ? " 

" I know, sir ; but then I saw him." 

" Go down and see who it is." 

Bruce hesitated. "I never was a believer in 
ghosts," he said, " but if the truth must be told, sir, 
I'd rather not face it alone." 

" Come, come, man. Go down at once, and don't 
make a fool of yourself before the crew." 

" I hope you've always found me willing to do 
what's reasonable," Bruce replied, changing color; 
" but if it's all the same to you, sir, I'd rather we 
should both go down together." 

The captain descended the stairs, and the mate fol- 
lowed him. Nobody in the cabin ! They examined 
the state-rooms. Not a soul could be found. 

" Well, Mr. Bruce," said the captain, " did not I 
tell you you had been dreaming ? " 

" It's all very well to say so, sir ; but if I didn't 
see that man writing on your slate, may I never see 
my home and family again." 

" Ah, writing on the slate ! Then it should be 
there still." And the captain took it up. " By 
Heaven ! " he exclaimed, " there's something, sure 
enough ! Is that your writing, Mr. Bruce ? " 

The mate took the slate, and there, in plain, legible 
characters, stood the words, " Steer to the nor'- 
west." 

" Have you been trifling with me, sir ? " added the 
captain, in a stern manner. 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OE A FUTURE LIFE. 63 

" On my word as a man and a sailor, sir," replied 
Bruce, " I know no more of this matter than you do. 
I have told you the exact truth." 

The captain sat down at his desk, the slate before 
him, in deep thought. At last, turning the slate over, 
and pushing it toward Bruce, he said, — 

" Write down, ; Steer to the nor'-ivest? ' 

The mate complied ; and the captain, after narrow- 
ly comparing the two handwritings, said, — 

"Mr. Bruce, go- and tell the second mate to come 
down here." 

He came ; and, at the captain's request, he also 
wrote the same words. So did the steward. So, in 
succession, did every man of the crew who could 
write at all. But not one of the various hands re- 
sembled, in any degree, the mysterious writing. 

When the crew retired, the captain sat deep in 
thought. 

" Could any one have been stowed away? " at last 
he said. " The ship must be searched, and if I don't 
find the fellow, he must be a good hand at hide-and- 
seek. Order up all hands." 

Every nook and corner of the vessel from stem to stern 
was thoroughly searched, and that with all the eagerness 
of excited curiosity, for the report had gone out that 
a stranger had shown himself on board ; but not a 
living soul beyond the crew and the officers was 
found. 

Returning to the cabin after their fruitless search, 
" Mr. Bruce," said the captain, " what the deuce do 
you make of all this? " 

" Can't tell, sir. J saw the man write ; you see the 
writing. There must be something in it." 



64 THE HEREAFTER. 

" Well, it would seem so. We have the wind free, 
and I have a great mind to keep her away, and see 
what will come of it." 

" 1 surely would, sir, if I were in your place. It's 
only a few hours lost at the worst." 

" Well, we'll see. Go on deck, and give the course 
nor'-west. And, Mr. Bruce," he added, as the mate 
rose to go, " have a lookout aloft, and let it be a hand 
you can depend on." 

His orders were obeyed. About three o'clock the 
lookout reported an iceberg nearly ahead, and shortly 
after, what he thought was a vessel of some kind, 
close to it. 

As they approached, the captain's glass disclosed 
the fact that it was a dismantled ship, apparently 
frozen to the ice, and with a great many human be- 
ings on it. Shortly after they hove to, and sent out 
the boats to the relief of the sufferers. 

It proved to be a vessel from Quebec, bound to 
Liverpool, with passengers on board. She had got 
entangled in the ice, and finally frozen fast, and had 
passed several weeks in a most critical situation. She 
was stove, her decks swept — in fact, a mere wreck ; 
all her provisions and almost all her water gone. Her 
crew and passengers had lost all hope of being saved, 
and their gratitude for the unexpected rescue was 
proportionally great. 

As one of the men who had been brought away in 
the third boat that had reached the wreck was ascend- 
ing the ship's side, the mate, catching a glimpse of his 
face, started back in consternation. It was the very 
face he had seen three or four hours before looking 
up at him from the captain's desk ! 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 65 

At first he tried to persuade himself it might be 
fancy ; but the more he examined the man, the more 
sure he became that he was right. Not' only the face, 
but the person and the dress, exactly corresponded. 

As soon as the exhausted crew and famished pas- 
sengers were cared for, and the hark on her course 
again, the mate called the captain aside. 

" It seems that was not a ghost I saw to-day, sir ; 
the man's alive." 

" What do you mean ? Who's alive ? " 

" Why, sir, one of the passengers we have just 
saved is the man I saw writing on your slate at 
noon. I would swear to it in a court of justice." 

" Upon my word, Mr. Bruce," replied the captain, 
" this gets more and more singular. Let us go and 
see this man." 

They found him in conversation with the xaptain 
of the rescued ship. They both came forward, and 
expressed in the warmest terms their gratitude for 
deliverance from a horrible fate — slow-coming death 
by exposure and starvation. 

The captain replied that he had but done what he 
was certain they would have done for him under the 
same circumstances, and asked them both to step 
down into the cabin. Then, turning to the passen- 
ger, he said, — 

" I hope, sir, you will not think I am trifling with 
you ; but I would be much obliged to you if you 
would write a few words on this slate." 

And he handed him the slate, with that side up on 
which the mysterious writing was not. 

" I will do anything you ask," replied the passen- 
ger ; " but what shall I write ? " 
5 



6Q THE HEREAFTER . 

" A few words are all I want. Suppose you write, 
4 Steer to the nor > -we%t.' > " 

The passenger, evidently puzzled to make out the 
motive for such a request, complied, however, with a 
smile. The captain took up the slate, and examined 
it closely ; then, stepping aside so as to conceal the 
slate from the passenger, he turned it over, and gave 
it to him with the other side up. 

" You say that is your handwriting ? " said he. 

" I need not say so," rejoined the other, looking at 
it, " for you saw me write it." 

"And this?" said the captain, turning the slate 
over. 

The man looked first at one writing, then at the 
other, quite confounded. At last, — 

"What is the meaning of this ? " said he. "I 
only wrote one of these. Who wrote the other ? " 

" That's more than I can tell you, sir. My mate 
here says you wrote it, sitting at this desk, at noon 
to-day." 

The captain of the wreck and the passenger looked 
at each other, exchanging glances of intelligence and 
surprise, and the former asked the latter, — 

" Did you dream that you wrote on this slate ? 

" No, sir, not that I remember." 

" You speak of dreaming," said the captain of the 
bark. " What was this gentleman about at noon to- 
day?" 

" Captain," rejoined the other (the captain of the 
wreck), " the whole thing is most mysterious and ex- 
traordinary, and I had intended to speak to you about 
it as soon as we got a little quiet. This gentleman," 
— pointing to the passenger, — " being much exhaust- 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 67 

ed, fell into a heavy sleep, or what seemed such, some 
time before noon. After an hour or more, he awoke, 
and said to me, 4 Captain, we shall be relieved this 
very day.' When I asked him what reason he had 
for saying so, he replied that he had dreamed that he 
was on board a bark, and that she was coming to our 
rescue. He described her appearance and rig, and, to 
our utter astonishment, when your vessel hove in 
sight, she corresponded exactly to his description of 
her. We had not put much faith in what he said ; 
yet still we hoped there might be something in it, for 
drowning men, you know, will catch at straws. As 
it has turned out, I can not doubt that it was all ar- 
ranged, in some incomprehensible way, by an over- 
ruling Providence, so that we might be saved. To 
him be all thanks for his goodness to us." 

" There is not a doubt," rejoined the captain of the 
bark, " that the writing on the slate, let it have come 
there as it may, saved all your lives. I was steering 
at the time considerably south of west, and I altered 
my course for nor'-west, and had a lookout aloft, to 
see what would come of it. But you say," he added, 
turning to the passenger, " that you did not dream of 
writing on a slate." 

" No, sir. I have no recollection whatever of doing 
so. I got the impression that the bark I saw in my 
dream was coming to rescue us ; but how that impres- 
sion came I can not tell. There is another very 
strange thing about it," he added. " Everything 
here on board seems to me quite familiar ; yet I am 
very sure I never was in your vessel before. It is all 
a puzzle to me. What did your mate see ? " 

Thereupon Mr. Bruce related to them all the cir- 



68 THE HEREAFTER. 

cumstances above detailed. The conclusion they 
finally arrived at was, that it was a special interposition 
of Providence to save them from what seemed a hope- 
less fate. 

Here are two coincidental circumstances combining 
to demonstrate the fact that a spirit had temporarily 
left the body. In the first place the gentleman had 
passed into a trance-like sleep, in which he somehow 
received an idea that deliverance was at hand. It is 
true that he could not remember the particulars of his 
dream ; but when he came out of it he had a vague 
idea that in some way he had received intelligence 
that a vessel was coming to their relief. But admit 
that this is "all a dream," and that it was a happy 
coincidence that the vessel had just happened to come 
as he expected it, and that everything on board seemed 
familiar, as if he had before been there, then there is 
another side of the story to be presented. A man who 
is in no way superstitious, in daylight, when he should 
least expect to see an extraordinary occurrence, looks 
over his shoulder to call the attention of the captain 
to what seemed to him to be a mistake in his calcula- 
tions, and, instead of the captain, he beholds an entire 
stranger. The dream may have been a dream ; but 
how comes it at precisely the same hour the counter- 
part of the dream is seen by another individual ? Let 
us endeavor to account for this on the principle of 
mind-reading. Now, if it had been that Mr. Bruce had 
imagined he heard a voice at the time he saw the ap- 
parition, telling him to steer to the nor'-west, it would 
be possible to admit this as an hypothesis, but in no 
other way. But then we have the writing left on the 
slate, after the disappearance of the apparition. No 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OE A FUTURE LIFE. G9 

one on shipboard could imitate the writing ; but it was 
an exact fac-simile of the handwriting of the gentle- 
man who dreamed of the rescue. In order to make 
the case clearer, allow me, in a few words, to remove 
the alibi. The gentleman is on land in one of our 
large cities ; he is seen by a clerk in a certain store, 
sitting at a desk, apparently writing. The clerk leaves 
the room, and on his return finds an order with his 
name attached to it, " Let John Doe have a bill of 
goods on my account." John Doe comes in shortly 
after and gets the goods. The gentleman returns, 
and tells some one that he has been " up in town." 
Would he have any means of contesting that order ? 
Would there be any doubts in the case, inasmuch 
as he had reported his absence from his place of busi- 
ness at that hour, and that he had been seen by anoth- 
er individual at another place, and an order had been 
found there in his own handwriting, with his own 
name attached, that he was the author of the contents 
of the order ? The case reported above, with the ex- 
ception of the alibi of the body, is precisely similar. 

If there was no other evidence of a future life only 
this, it would be enough ; for if the spirit can live in- 
dependent of the body one hour, it may for a longer 
time. This establishes the truth that we had reached 
in another direction before — that the spirit is superior 
to the body, and only uses the body for the manifesta- 
tion of itself to the outward senses. 

The spirit frequently — perhaps more frequently 
than we imagine — leaves the body for a time, and 
then returns again. If the rapport is complete, the 
brain will constantly receive the impression of its ex- 
periences, and thus they are remembered the next 



70 THE HEBE AFTER. 

morning ; otherwise they are not. There is a mag- 
netic chord, during this whole phenomenon, between 
the spirit and the body it controls, which enables them, 
and even compels them, to return to their bodies again. 
I am of the opinion that people go into the spirit 
world more frequently than is generally known or 
observed, and return again ; but, not holding control 
of the physical organism during that time, they can 
not bring to their minds what has occurred to them 
in their dreams. They have a vague, indefinite idea 
of something that crossed their minds during the night, 
but they have no means of telling what it is. 

How often has it been observed that the aged sire 
or long-loved mother has retired to their bed at night 
well and hearty, but in the morning they were not found 
in their place ! A first, second, and third summons 
failed to bring them. The door is opened, and there, 
straightened on the bed, with hands folded across the 
breast, ready for the " winding-sheet," is the form of 
the long-revered one. The spirit has gone ; only the 
lifeless form remains. Perhaps in its peregrinations in 
the world some kind angel has severed the magnetic 
chord which cabled it to the body, and it is no longer 
compelled to come back to earth. Possibly it was at- 
tracted far away into the spirit land, and the tension 
was too great. At any rate death came none too soon. 
Like a shock of corn fully ripe, the aged one has 
been gathered in, and the augel-reapers have with 
joy shouted their harvest-home. 

APPARITIONS OF THE DEAD. 

Another evidence of the immortality of the soul 
may be derived from the apparitions of the dead. The 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUPE LIFE. 71 

following case will be found in " Footfalls," pp. 402, 
403. It was communicated by the Rev. Charles 
McKay, a Catholic priest, in a letter by him to the 
Countess of Shrewsbury, dated Perth, October 21, 
1842. It was communicated by the earl to Edward 
Binn, M. D., who published it in a work entitled 
" The Anatomy of Sleep." Dr. Binn says, " Perhaps 
there is not a better authentic case on record." The 
following is the extract Mr. Owen has made from the 
letter : — 

THE DEBT OF THPEE-AND-TENPENCE. 

" In July, 1838, I left Edinburgh to take charge of 
Perthshire missions. On my arrival in Perth, the 
principal station, I was called upon by a Presbyterian 
woman, — Anne Simpson by name, — who for more 
than a week had been in the utmost anxiety to see a 
priest. On asking her what she wanted with me, she 
answered, — 

" ' O, sir, I have been terribly troubled for several 
nights by a person appearing to me during the night.' 

" 4 Are you a Catholic, my good woman ? ' 

" 4 No, "Sir ; I am a Presbyterian.' 

" ' Why, then, do you come to me ? I am a Catho- 
lic priest.' 

" c But, sir, she ' (meaning the person that had ap- 
peared to her) c desired me to go to the priest ; and I 
have been inquiring for a priest during the last week.' 

" c Why did she wish you to go to the priest ? ' 

" ' She said she owed a sum of money, and the priest 
would pay it.' 

" ' What was the sum of money she owed ? ' 

" 4 Three-and-tenpence, sir.' 



72 THE HEREAFTER. 

" ; To whom did she owe it ? ' 

" ' I do not know, sir.' 

" ' Are you sure you have not been dreaming ? ' 

" ' O, God forgive you ! for she appears to me every 
night. I can get no rest.' 

" 4 Did you know the woman you say appears to 
you ? ' 

" ' I was poorly lodged, sir, near the barracks, and 
I often saw and spoke to her as she went in and out 
to the barracks ; and she called herself Maloy.' 

" I made inquiry, and found that a woman of that 
name had died who had acted as washerwoman, and 
followed the regiment. Following up the inquiry, I 
found a grocer with whom she had dealt, and on ask- 
ing him if a person, a female, named Maloy, owed him 
anything, he turned to his books, and told me she 
did owe him three-and-tenpence. I paid the sum. 
The grocer knew nothing of her death, nor, indeed, 
of her character, but that she was attached to the 
barracks. Subsequently the Presbyterian woman 
came to me, saying that she was no more troubled." 

WONDERFUL APPARITION. * 

The following, copied from a number of the " Meth- 
odist Magazine " of 1818, will be considered quite sat- 
isfactory. 

"To the Editor of the Methodist Magazine. 

" Sir : At the Sheffield Conference of 1817, when 
examining the young men in the public congregation, 
I was greatly surprised by the extraordinary declara- 
tion of one of the preachers. The effect his narrative 
produced upon the audience induced me to request 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 73 

him to commit to paper what he had so distinctly de- 
tailed. As it contains a well-authenticated account 
of what infidelity has affected to deny, and many well- 
informed Christians receive with suspicion and doubt, 
your insertion of his letter to me will at least afford 
some further evidence on a question which is of such 
high interest and importance to the world. 

" J. Gaulter. 

"Rochester, Feb. 4, 1818." 

" Sheffield, 8th Aug., 1817. 

"Mr. President. Hon. Sir: According g) your 
desire, I take up my pen to give you the particulars 
of a solemn fact, which was the first grand means of 
leading my mind seriously to think of those solemn 
realities, death, judgment, and eternity. 

" A sister being married to a gentleman in the army, 
we Teceived intelligence that the regiment to which 
he belonged had orders for one of the Spanish Isles 
(Minorca). One night, sixteen years back, about ten 
o'clock, as his wife,, his child, an elder sister, and my- 
self were sitting in a back room, the shutters were 
closed, bolted, and barred, the yard door locked, when 
suddenly a light shone through the window, the shut- 
ters, and bars, and illumined the room we sat in. We 
looked, started, and beheld the spirit of a murdered 
brother ! His eye was fixed on his wife and child al- 
ternately. He waved his hand, smiled, continued 
about half a minute, then vanished from bur sight. 
The moment before the spirit disappeared, my sister 
cried, ' He's dead, he's dead ! ' and fainted away. Her 
little boy ran to his father's spirit, and wept because 
it would not stay. A short time after this we received 
a letter from the colonel of the regiment, sealed with 



74 THE HEREAFTER. 

black, the dark emblem of mortality, bearing the dole- 
ful but expected news, that on such anight (the same 
we saw his spirit) my brother-in-law was found wel- 
tering in his blood (in returning from the mess-room). 
The spark of life was not quite out. The last wish 
he was heard to breathe was, to see his wife and child. 
It was granted him in a certain sense ; for the very 
hour he died in the Island of Minorca, that same hour, 
according to the very little difference of clocks, his 
spirit appeared to his wife, his child, an elder sister, 
and myself, in Doncaster. Before this event, sir, 
though a boy of nine years, I was a complete atheist. 
By this solemn circumstance I was convinced of the 
reality of another world's existence, and by the solemn 
impression that it made upon my mind I was led to 
pray for mercy, found it at the foot of the cross, 
and now feel the Holy Spirit preparing my soul to en- 
ter those eternal and invisible regions, the land of 
spirits. I am, sir, yours obediently, 

" Thos. Savage. 

"P. S. My sister, from the night she saw the spirit 
of her husband, mourned him as dead, nor could my 
father prevent it by any argument. He endeavored 
to persuade us we were all deceived ; yet he acknowl- 
edged the testimony which the child gave staggered him. 
But when the letter arrived from the colonel of the regi- 
ment, with the awful tidings, he was struck dumb. My 
two sisters are yet living, and can testify to the truth of 
this account, and at least one hundred persons beside 
our own family can prove our mentioning the hour the 
spirit appeared several weeks before we received the 
melancholy letter, and that the letter mentioned the 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE* OF A FUTURE LIFE. 75 

hour and night he died, as the same in which we be- 
held his spirit. T. S." 

This needs no comment. Another interesting nar- 
rative occurs on pp. 409-413 of the same book. Mr. 
Owen obtained it directly from the parties them 
selves. 

A DATE IN THE WAR DEPARTMENT OF GREAT BRIT- 
AIN CORRECTED BY A SPIRIT. 

" In the month of September, 1857, Captain G. 
W., of the Sixth (Ineskilling) Dragoons, went out to 
India, to join his regiment. 

" His wife remained in England, residing at Cam- 
bridge. On the night between the 14th and 15th of 
November, 1857, toward morning, she dreamed that 
she saw her husband, looking anxious and ill, upon 
which she immediately awoke, much agitated. It 
was bright moonlight, and, looking up, she perceived 
the same figure standing by her bedside. He ap- 
peared in his uniform, the hands pressed across the 
breast, the hair dishevelled, the face very pale. His 
large, dark eyes were fixed full upon her ; their ex- 
pression was that of great excitement, and there was 
a peculiar contraction of the mouth, habitual to him 
when agitated. She saw him, to each minute partic- 
ular of his dress, as distinctly as she had ever done in 
her life 4 and she remembers to have noticed between 
the hands the white of the shirt-bosom, unstained, 
however, with blood. The figure seemed to bend for- 
ward, as if in pain, and to make an effort to speak ; 
but there was no sound. It remained visible, the 
wife thinks, as long as a minute, and then disap- 
peared. 



76 . THE HEREAFTER. 

" Her first idea was to ascertain if she was actually 
awake. She rubbed her eyes with the sheet, and felt 
that the touch was real. Her little nephew was in 
bed with her. She bent over the sleeping child, and 
listened to its breathing ; the sound was distinct, and 
she became convinced that what she had seen was no 
dream. It need hardly be added that she did not 
again go to sleep that night. 

" Next morning she related all this to her mother, 
expressing her conviction, though she had noticed no 
marks of blood on his dress, that Captain W. wag 
either killed or grievously wounded. She was so fully 
impressed with the reality of that apparition that she 
thenceforth refused all invitations. . . . 

It was on a Tuesday, in the month of December, 
1857, that the telegram regarding the actual fate of 
Captain W. was published in London. It was to the 
effect that he was killed before Lucknow, on the 
fifteenth of November. 

" This news, given in the morning paper, attract- 
ed the attention of Mr. Wilkinson, a London solicitor, 
who had in charge Captain W/s affairs. When at a 
later period this gentleman met the widow, she in- 
formed him that she had been quite prepared for the 
melancholy news, but that she was sure her husband 
could not have been killed on the 15th of November, 
inasmuch as it was during the night between the 
14th and 15th that he appeared to herself." 

Shortly after this Mr. Wilkinson " was visiting 
with a friend, whose lady has all her life had percep- 
tions of apparitions. She is what is usually called an 
impressible medium — a fact which is known, how- 
ever, only to their intimate friends. Though person- 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUEE LIFE. 7 I 

ally acquainted with them, I am not at liberty to 
give their names. Let us call them Mr. and Mrs. N. 

" Mr. Wilkinson related to them, as a wonderful 
circumstance, the vision of the captain's widow, in 
connection with his death, and described the figure 
as it had appeared to her. Mrs. N., turning to her 
husband, instantly said, ' That must be the very per- 
son I saw the evening we were talking of India, and 
you drew an elephant with a houclah on his back. 
Mr. Wilkinson has described his exact position and 
appearance — the uniform of a British officer, his 
hands pressed across his breast, his form bent for- 
ward as if in pain. The figure,' she added to Mr. 
Wilkinson, ; appeared just behind my husband, and 
seemed looking over his left shoulder.' 

" c Did you attempt to obtain any communication 
from him ? ' Mr. Wilkinson asked. 

" c Yes ; we procured one through the medium of 
my husband.' 

" ' Do you remember its purport ? ' 

" t It was to the. effect that he had been killed, in 
India, that afternoon, by a wound in the breast ; and 
adding, as I distinctly remember, " That thing I go 
about in is not buried yet." I particularly marked 
the expression.' 

" ' When did this happen ? ' 

" ' About nine o'clock in the evening, several 
weeks ago ; but I do not recollect the exact date.' 

" She then called to mind a bill she had paid that 
evening, which was receipted. The receipt, when 
found, bore date of the fourteenth of November. Two 
official dispatches had stated he had been killed on 
the fifteenth of November ; but in the month of March 



78 THE HEREAFTER. 

of the next year a private letter was received stating 
that Captain W. had been killed on the fourteenth of 
November, and not on the fifteenth, as reported in 
Sir Colin Campbell's dispatches. It was more than a 
year after this when the war office made the correc- 
tion. The date of his death, as found cut on the 
board at the head of his grave, was found to be the 
fourteenth of November." 

Here, again, we have a series of coincidences all 
manifesting intelligence. 1. The lady saw her hus- 
band between the 14th and 15th of November. 2. On 
the same night he was also seen by another la'dy, and 
personated by a gentleman : all agreed that he seemed 
to be hurt in the breast. The gentleman's hand 
wrote that he had been killed, in India, by a wound 
in the breast. But Sir Colin Campbell's dispatches 
intimated he had been killed the day after the 14th. 
Afterward, however, the war department discovered 
the mistake, and sustained the testimony of the spirit. 
The grave-mark also bears date of the 14th of No- 
vember. 

I have one more case to present of the appearance 
of a gentleman immediately after his death. It is 
found in Owen's " Debatable Land,"* pp. 557, 458. 

- " New York, June 10, 1862. 

" In compliance with the request in your note, I 
here give the special facts connected with the appari- 
tion of my father. 

" It was on the 13th of December, 1847, as I was 
walking, with my two eldest sons, in Grand Street, 

* Debatable Land between this World and the Next, by R. D. 
Owen. G. W. Carleton & Co., New York. 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUBE LIFE. 79 

New York. It was in the forenoon, before twelve 
o'clock, and the sidewalk was full of people. There 
the whole figure of my father suddenly appeared to me. 
He was in his usual dress, his well-remembered cap on 
his head, his pipe in his hand, and he gazed on me 
with an earnest look ; then as suddenly disappeared. 

" I was very much terrified, and immediately wrote 
home, relating what had happened. Some time after- 
ward I received a letter from one of my brothers, 
written from Neukirchen, Rhenish Prussia, the family 
residence, informing me that on the morning of the 
13th of December our father had died there. At 
breakfast on that day he was in his usual health, and 
had been speaking of me with great anxiety. After 
breakfast he passed out into the yard, and, in return- 
ing, he dropped dead, overtaken by a sudden fit of 
apoplexy. 

" I learned afterward that at the moment of 
death he wore the very dress in which I had seen 
him ; the same cap on his head, the pipe in his hand. 

" Yours, 

" F. Steins. 

"To Brodhurst Schiefelin, Esq." 

This case, coming from a respectable source, will 
hardly be questioned. Rev. Mr. Steins is indorsed by 
Mr. Brodhurst Schiefelin, of the well-known firm of 
Schiefelin & Co., New York. The whole controversy 
might be staked upon any one of these narratives 
without any risk, for if one person lives after the 
death of the body, so do all others. The reader will 
excuse me from a waste of words in comments on the 
foregoing narratives, for the point is carried beyond 
the necessity of any further argument. 



80 THE HEREAFTER. 

I will now offer a few thoughts on Physical Mani- 
festations. Something claiming to be a spirit power 
lifts tables, pianos, chairs, and other articles of furni- 
ture. It may not he the spirits of our friends — possi- 
bly they are lying spirits — or it is possible they do 
not tell the truth in pretending to give the names 
they bore on earth; that does not militate against the 
idea that it is done by spirits. The question, and the 
only question that can be asked, is, "Are these physi- 
cal manifestations produced by seen or unseen agen- 
cies?" and it is a question easily enough answered. 
But the only answer that can be given is that " there 
is an unseen force operating somewhere, that pro- 
duces these manifestations ; but whenever we get into 
the unseen, we are in the realm of spirit. During 
this writing I am in the city of Memphis. About 
three weeks since 

CHARLES H. FOSTER 

was here, and many of the citizens went to see him, 
and, with one exception, — Rev. J. R. Graves, D. D., 
— all expressed themselves satisfied. Names and ini- 
tials of names were written on his arm by an invis- 
ible scribe ; also writings came on paper held under 
the table. Our city papers sent their reporters to in- 
vestigate and report what occurred. Below I give 
the result of a seance, as reported by a representative 
of the Memphis Appeal. I prefer giving from this 
paper,- because it has taken no pains to conceal its 
aversion to Spiritualism. These manifestations were 
not altogether of a physical order, but I can not put 
their record in a better place. 

Test No. 1. — One of the gentlemen wrote the 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 81 

name of a female child, who died several years since, 
at eight years old, and wrote this question : " Do you 
wish to send a message to your mother ? " Mr. Fos- 
ter described, as appearing before and near the writer 
of the question, a little girl with happy, smiling face, 
with a beautiful wreath around her, and a crown 
on. her head, waving her hand joyously, and said, 

" She says her name is " (giving the exact 

name), and added, "She says, Yes; she wishes to 
send a message to her mother." He then proceeded 
to write a beautiful message, and handed it to the 
writer of the question. 

No. 2. — The same person had written the name of 
a distinguished and well-known officer of the late Con- 
federate army, and added this question: "Do you 
wish to communicate with me or your family? " 

Mr. Foster at once took up his pencil and wrote a 
long message to the widow of the person whose name 
was written, and it was signed exactly as the deceased 
signed his name. 

No. 3. — Another name was given by Mr. Foster 
to the same gentleman, entirely accurate, who said 
he was killed at — — , which was the fact. 

No. 4. — Another gentleman had written the name 
of his mother on a paper, but omitted any question. 
Mr. Foster said she was present, and handed to the 
gentleman a long communication, giving the name 
of his father and sister, also dead, the latter of whom 
had died forty years since, and the signature was cor- 
rect both as to Christian and surname. 

No. 5. — -He also described to the gentleman, and 
gave the correct name of, a relative of his wife, 
6 



82 THE HEREAFTER. 

who is dead, whose name this gentleman had writ- 
ten at his wife's request. 

No. 6. — Another one of the party received a note, 
before visiting Mr. Foster, from a friend, telling him 

to write the name of — , who was murdered about 

eighteen years since, at , and whose murderer 

had never been identified. Mr. Foster gave the full 
name of the murdered man, stated when and where 
he was murdered ; but the spirit, or agency, declined 
to give the name of the murderer. 

No. 7. — Mr. Foster announced the presence of the 
spirit of a gentleman who had visited Europe with 
one of our party in 1864, giving the full name accu- 
rately. The person to whom he addressed himself 
wrote this question : " Have you met any of my rela- 
tives ? " The answer was, "Yes; several." The 
next request was, "Name them." At once the an- 
swer came, " ," which was the exact 

name of a deceased sister. 

No. 8. — Another spirit was announced, and name 
given accurately, who said he died at a certain time 
from a fall, which the writer of the question said 
was correct. He also gave to this gentleman the 
names of half a dozen dead friends, with certain par- 
ticulars to identify them, which were all pronounced 
correct. 

No. 9. — To another gentleman he gave an auto- 
graph signature of a deceased friend, which the ques- 
tioner pronounced a very good facsimile of the hand- 
writing of the deceased. But one mistake was made 
that I now remember, and that was of a soldier giving 
the name of the battle in which he was killed ; one 
of the gentlemen present said he had given it wrong. 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUBE LIFE. 83 

The papers were so rolled up that Mr. Foster could 
not see what was written on them ; in fact, the greater 
number of the answers were given without his han- 
dling the papers at all, and several of the gentlemen 
brought their questions already written into the 
room. 

I have no words to throw away in answer to the 
charge of mind-reading, as I have already demon- 
strated that even that power takes us into the realm 
of spirit. 

I have no time now to lay before the reader the 
vast amount of evidence of the wonderful manifesta- 
tions occurring in the presence of the Moravia medi- 
ums, Mrs. Hollis, of Louisville, Ky., Dr. Henry Slacle, 
of New York, and hundreds of others in whose pres- 
ence spirit forms are seen, voices are heard, writing is 
produced without the aid of visible hands., etc., etc. 
A reference to almost any of the daily papers will 
convince the thinking skeptic that there is at least 
some evidence that there are things in heaven and 
earth of which his philosophy can not even dream. 

Horace Greeley, in his " Recollections of a Busy 
Life," under the heading of "Glamour," says, "I 
have sat, with three others, around a small table, with 
every one of our eight hands lying plainly, palpably 
on that table, and heard rapid writing with a pencil 
on paper, which, perfectly white, we had just pre- 
viously placed under that table ; and have, the next 
minute, picked up that paper with a sensible, straight- 
forward message of twenty to fifty words fairly writ- 
ten»thereon. I do not say by whom, or by what, said 
message was written ; yet I am quite confident that 



84 THE HEEE AFTER. 

none of the persons present, who were visible to mor- 
tal eyes, wrote it." 

He does not tell us who did the writing, but he 
leaves no escape from the inference that it was writ- 
ten by spirits. 

I have been in a quandary as to whether I should 
tax the patience of my readers with a history of mani- 
festations of which I myself was a witness. I finally 
yield to the impulse to present at least an abridged 
statement of the 

HIGGINSVILLE MANIFESTATIONS. 

During the spring of 1871 I received a number of 
letters from Morgan Reese, Esq., of Higginsville, 111., 
inviting me to come to that place, and witness the 
manifestations in the presence of his daughters. Be- 
ing compelled to go through Danville, 111., twelve 
miles south of Higginsville, in June of that year, I 
yielded to his wishes, and went to the place. The 
result of that visit was written up for the Crucible, 
a paper with which I was connected in Baltimore, 
Maryland. 

" The readers of the Crucible have already heard 
somewhat of the astonishing manifestations of this 
place, but we confess 4 the half had not been told.' 
We went there very doubtful, and told them that 
we wanted them to do their best, as we wished it for 
the benefit of the public. The mediums were two 
daughters of Mr. Morgan Reese, Ardilla and Eliza- 
beth, and William Stump. We had been there but a 
short time when we heard a voice somewhere, -•— it 
seemed just beyond, and yet it was near, — a voice 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUHE LIEE. 85 

which sounded somewhat like the voice of a whip-poor- 
will, which we could understand with great difficulty, 
and yet it seemed easy for the mediums to understand 
every word. The voice purported to come from a 
spirit, and threatened, whether in a joke or not they 
hardly seemed to understand, to i draw blood.' This 
threat has been made so often, and the butcher-knife 
has been thrown so dangerously near the mediums, 
that the family, fearing that the spirit may be in ear- 
nest about the matter, have locked it up in a drawer, 
where they seem to think it is beyond his reach. In 
answer to our inquiries, the spirit said his name was 
John Richeson ; that he had murdered his wife over 
thirty years ago, and had been hung in Covington, 
Ind. He says he is in hell, and we had hard work to 
convince him that he might progress out of the dark- 
ness which then surrounded him. 

" We remained there the whole day, and talked 
with the spirits constantly. One of the mediums 
played on a jewsharp, when it seemed that a full set 
were out on the floor dancing, keeping perfect time 
with the music. All this was in broad daylight, with 
all the doors open, and the dancing might have been 
heard several rods from the house. 

" While the spirits were talking, objects were con- 
stantly flying about the house, kitchen, and even yard 
— objects of every description, such as the hammer, a 
saucer, knives, an ear of corn, an iron bar, an ax, and 
an old chair flying across the yard, and other objects 
too numerous to mention. At one time, Avhen objects 
were flying about the house in a most lively manner, 
a cat, which was about half way across the kitchen, 
between the room and kitchen doors, was picked up 



86 THE HEREAFTER. 

by an unseen hand, and thrown so hard against the 
open door as to glance off into the yard, about six feet 
from the kitchen.* The cat raised her tail and the 
hair on her back, and looked back, first on one side, 
then on the other, to see who had been facilitating her 
locomotion, while the spirit and the spectators were 
all enjoying a hearty laugh over the matter (for the 
spirit often laughs when he throws objects so near as 
to frighten persons). Doubtless her feline worship 
was looking which way to run in order to evade the 
danger. 

" We returned in the evening, after the lecture, 
when the room was made dark, and we never experi- 
enced anything so terrific in our life. While the 
spirit is repeating his threats to 4 draw blood,' they 
are hammering away as if they would batter the 
house down ; objects are thrown all about the house, 
on the floor, to the great danger of our heads, and the 
severe detriment of our shins. In the midst of this 
din and confusion, heavy steps are heard, a scuffling 
ensues, the mediums are calling for lights ; but before 
we can strike our matches, they are thrown heavily 
against the side of the house. This was such a dread 
reality that it was with difficulty that the mediums 
could be persuaded to allow the light extinguished 



* " I did not see the cat thrown against the door, as my mind at 
that moment was called in another direction. The act caused an 
expression of surprise and laughter, which called my attention to 
the cat, as she stood with her fur raised in the yard. In answer to 
my inquiry, ' What is the matter with the cat?' I was told that she 
had been tossed against the door. With this explanation, I can tes- 
tify upon my oath to all that I have said." 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 87 

" Our brother, J. B. Hull, had been an unbeliever 
in spiritual manifestations till he went to one of their 
dark circles. There he was convinced, and he showed 
us the arguments that convinced him, on his shins. 
Nothing can induce him to sit again, as he has evi- 
dence of that kind enough to satisfy him as long as he 
lives, and does not wish to trouble the spirits with 
any more doubts. 

" One of the neighborhood boys, wishing to weaken 
the evidences of Spiritualism, undertook to get up 
some counterfeit manifestations one night ; but they 
had scarcely commenced when Eicheson, who sees as 
well in the dark as in the light, reported him by 
name, and told that he ' made that,' and threatened, 
if he did so again, ' he would break every bone in his 
body.' As no one had any doubt of his ability to do 
it, they were more careful after that." 

THE RAPS 

are sometimes denominated the a, b, c of Spiritualism ; 
and yet there are hundreds of persons in every part 
of Europe and America who have, when all other 
evidence has failed, been convinced of immortality, or 
at least of a life beyond the grave, by the raps. It 
would not be out of place to here state that, although 
it has been twenty-five years since the raps were first 
heard at Hyclesville, N. Y., there has never, up to this 
time, been any explanation of them, other than that 
given by the raps themselves. That they are per- 
formed by some unseen agency, no well informed per- 
son can doubt. Communications received through 
the raps, if true, may justly be regarded as tests 
given under very difficult circumstances, as the letters 



88 THE HEREAFTER. 

of the alphabet must often be called, and the raps 
must be produced at precisely the time the proper 
letter is called. The following test case is taken from 
"Debatable Land," pages 397-401: — 

A SPIRIT SETTLES HIS BUSINESS. 

" Mrs. G., who was residing in a village near the city 
of Cincinnati, had overcome her aversion to Spiritual- 
ism enough to tolerate her curiosity in investigating 
the subject. During her stay in the village, she had 
a visit from a lady friend (Mrs. L. B.), who was a 
medium. One day, after she had had a sitting with 
Mrs. B., she remained in the room for a while alone, 
when she discovered that, by barely touching the 
table, it would move after her across the floor. After 
a few sittings, it would move in her presence without 
being touched. In the next sitting with Mrs. B., the 
name c Jack ' was spelled out. This was a brother 
of her husband's, who had been dead about six 
months. Jack was asked if he wished anything done 
for him. The reply was, c Give Anna that ring.' 

" Now Anna was the name of a young lady to whom, 
at the time of his death, the brother was betrothed. 
Mrs. G. did not know what ring was meant ^ but she 
remembered, when Jack died, a plain gold ring — the 
only one he wore — had been presented by her husband 
to a friend of his brother, a Mr. G. She asked if that 
was the ring, and the reply was in the affirmative. 

" Some days after this, Jack's mother paid them a 
visit. Nothing was said to her of the above commu- 
nication. In the course of the conversation she told 
them that Miss Anna M. had called upon her ; had 
stated that she had given to Jack, at the time of her 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 89 

betrothal, a plain gold ring, and that she wished to have 
it again. Mrs. G. and her husband were both igno- 
rant that the ring in question had been Miss M.'s ; 
Jack never had said anything to them on the subject. 
Measures were taken to have the ring returned. 

" Some time after Jack's death three persons, G., 
C, and S., came severally to Captain G., and told 
him that his brother had died indebted to them. He 
requested them to send in their bills in writing. 
Meanwhile, not knowing anything of debts due by 
his brother to these individuals, Captain G. asked 
Mrs. G. to have a session, hoping to obtain some 
information on the subject. The following was the 
result : — 

" Jack announced himself, and his brother asked, — 

" ' Did you owe G. at the time of your death ? ' 

"'Yes.' 

" ' How much ? ' 

" ' Thirty-five dollars.' 

" ' Were you indebted to C. ? ' 

" 'Yes.' 

" ' How much ? ' 

" ' Fifty dollars.' 

"' And how much to S.?' 

" ' Nothing.' 

" ' But S. says he has a bill against you.' 

" ' It is not just. I did borrow of him forty dollars, 
but I gave him fifty dollars. He repaid me seven 
only, and still owes me three.' 

" G.'s bill, when afterward presented, was for 
thirty-five dollars, and C.'s for fifty. S. handed in a 
bill for forty dollars, when Captain G. said, on its pre- 
sentation, that he had repaid him fifty. S. became 



90 THE HEREAFTER. 

confused, and said lie ' thought that was intended for 
a gift to his (S.'s) sister.' 

" Captain G. afterward asked, through the table, 
4 Jack, do you owe any one else ? ' 

"' Yes ; John Gr., for a pair of boots, ten dollars.' 

(" Neither Captain nor Mrs. G. knew anything about 
this debt.) 

" ' Does any one owe you ? ' 

" 4 Yes ; C. G. owes me fifty dollars.' 

" Captain G. applied to C. G., asking him whether 
he had been indebted to his brother Jack. 

44 ' Yes,' he replied ; ( fifteen dollars.' 

444 But he lent you fifty dollars.' • 

" ' That is true ; but I repaid him all but fifteen 
dollars.' 

" 4 You have receipts, I suppose ? ' 

" G. C. promised to look for them ; but afterward 
came and paid the fifty dollars. 

" Finally, Captain G. called on Mr. G., the shoe- 
maker, who had sent in no bill. Wishing to make 
the test as complete as possible, lie said, — 

'"Dol owe you a bill, Mr. G. ? ' 

" 4 No, sir. You have paid for all you have had 
of me.' 

44 Captain G. turned, as if to go, whereupon the 
shoemaker added, — 

" 4 But your brother, Mr. Jack, who died, left a 
small account unpaid.' 

444 What was it for?' 

44 4 A pair of boots.' 

44 4 And your charge for them ? ' 

44 4 Ten dollars.' 

44 4 Mr. Gr., there is your money.' " 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 91 

I do not think any one will attempt to explain this, 
either upon the principle of the " unconscious action 
of the brain," or "mind-reading." Anna probably 
would have got her ring, for she asked for it. But 
S. would have claimed an unjust bill, and probably 
collected it, whilst C. G. would have said nothing 
about his bill that he owed Jack, or if he had, he only 
would have paid fifteen dollars. This one instance, 
if we had no other, if not explained upon the hypothe- 
sis of spirit intercourse, would go unexplained. 

CLAIRVOYANCE. 

All kinds of spirit manifestations are, to some ex- 
tent, connected with clairvoyance, so that we can not 
well refer to any particular phenomena disconnected 
with clairvoyance. The case I am about to relate is 
such, that I shall entitle it 

A MISTAKE CORRECTED BY A SPIRIT. 

Mr. Owen, in the " Debatable Land," pp. 401-403, 
relates a case of clairvoyance of a gentleman (Dr. H.), 
who saw three individuals enter Dr. Bellows's church 
one Sunday morning, during the service. He instant- 
ly recognized two of them as being his wife and mother, 
who were deceased. But the third one was a beautiful 
young girl whom he had never seen, who had her arm 
around the mother, which suggested the relationship of 
daughter. The doctor failed to recognize the features 
of the stranger, as they did not seem to resemble in any 
way those of his sister Anna, who had died in childhood 
thirty-nine years before. Before they vanished, the doc- 
tor had ample time to notice every feature of the three 
apparitions, and to observe the manner and style of 



92 THE HEREAFTER. 

the dress of each one. The wife and stranger first 
faded from sight, and lastly the mother disappeared. 

With the impression that the third figure was that 
of his sister Anna, the next day he called upon one of 
the Fox sisters, when the raps indicated that the 
young lady's name was Elizabeth. As Dr. H. could 
not recollect any of his deceased relatives by that 
name, he was in doubt who it could be, when the raps 
indicated that Elizabeth was his sister. The doctor 
replied, — 

" That's a mistake. I never had a sister called 
Elizabeth. I did lose a sister by death, but her name 
was called Anna. Do you mean to say that the fig- 
ure I saw with its arm around my mother was my 
sister ? ' ' 

"Yes." 

" And her name was Elizabeth? " 

"Yes." (Very loud.) 

" Well, it isn't so : that's all I can say." 

This was answered by three still louder raps. 

The family Bible, in which were recorded the births 
and deaths of Dr. H.'s relatives, was with his step- 
mother, seventy miles away. Happening in the 
nighborhood some weeks after, he called upon his 
stepmother, and opened the Bible, where he found re- 
corded the birth of a daughter Elizabeth, in 1826, who 
died only a few weeks after. 

" This event occurred," says Mr. Owen, " during a 
five years' absence from his father's house, and though 
it may have been mentioned in one of his father's let- 
ters, he has not the slightest recollection that he ever 
received such intelligence, or that he ever heard of 
the birth or death of this infant alluded to by any of 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 93 

the family. A life so very brief usually passes away 
without leaving a trace, except in the secret depths of 
a mother's memory in the heart." 

There is, perhaps, no better clairvoyant in the world 
than Miss Lizzie Keyser, of Covington, Ky. It was 
my privilege to attend one of her seances, held in the 
Masonic Hall, at Indianapolis, on the evening of June 
18, 1871. As I took a phonographic report for The 
Crucible, I will give an extract from it as it was pub- 
lished in that paper. 

MISS LIZZIE KEYSER 'S SEANCE. 

" By the gentleman through here, sitting with the 
thick-set lady, I see a spirit who has been in spirit-life 
three or four years, not so tall as the gentleman is. 
His hair is light brown. He gives his name as Benja- 
min Keyes. The gentleman replied, ' I recognize the 
spirit : was he shot ? ' 

" Miss Keyser. ' He says he was.' 

"By this old gentleman sitting on the front seat, I 
see a young man about twenty-five years old ; medi- 
um height, dark hair, dark-gray eyes, pale face : was 
murdered by his brother. 

" Gentleman. ' I know him very well.' 

"By a gentleman sitting over there, I see the spirit 
of an old lady, of medium height, rather slender, light- 
brown hair, partially gray, dark or hazel eyes, I don't 
just know which. She gives me the name of Martha 
Mendenhall. 

" The gentleman answered, ' My mother.' 

" By an old gentleman back in the audience (point- 
ing him out) I see a spirit, who tells me ' the old gen- 
tleman is blind.' The spirit is about fifty years of 



94 THE HEEEAETER. 

age, with dark-brown hair, was an intimate friend of 
the gentleman, and gives me the name of Dr. Parry. 
(Not recognized.) 

" Near where those two old gentlemen are sitting 
together, by the second man on the seat, there comes 
two spirits, the first is the spirit of a gentleman who 
has been in spirit-life between five and six years, of 
medium height, stout built, full face, about thirty- 
eight years of age, and gives the name of George Bee- 
ler. (Not recognized by the old gentleman, but rec- 
ognized by one in the audience.) The second one is 
the spirit of an old gentleman, who tells me that years 
ago he was acquainted with the second gentleman on 
the seat, and he gives the name of Joseph Williams. 
He lived in the town where this gentleman resides. 
(Recognized.) 

" A beautiful lady stands over there, who has been 
in spirit life about six years ; medium height, brown 
hair, large gray eyes, and she says she passed away 
in Washington city. She gives me the name of Rosa- 
mond Hovey ; says her maiden name was Smith. 

" The spirit of a little boy, fair complexion, light 
eyes and hair, lays his head on the lady's shoulder on 
the second seat where that gentleman and lady are 
sitting, and gives his last name as Spence. (Recog- 
nized as the son of Dr. and Mrs. Spence, of Terre 
Haute, Ind.) 

" A spirit, or two spirits, — one is the spirit of a young 
man, about twenty-five years of age when he passed 
away ; been in spirit life about five years ; very tall, 
— about six feet I should think, — hair dark and 
long. And there is an old lady who has been in spirit 
life several years ; dark eyes, dark-brown hair. Her 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 95 

name is given as Caroline Sype. The gentleman's 
name is Robert Pratt. (Both recognized.) 

" By that gentleman back in the audience (describ- 
ing the place), I see the spirit of an old gentleman, 
medium height, his hair was gray, high cheek bones, 
and he gives the name of John Gregg. (Recognized.) 

" Through here, by a gentleman with a linen coat 
on, I see the spirit of a middle-aged lady, who has 
been in spirit-life between three and four months. 
Pale, medium height, brown hair, dark eyes, and is a 
relative of the gentleman. She says to him, ' I will 
try to be honest now. It is all right. I was stubborn. 
I did not want to own it. Now I know it.' She gives 
the name of Purcell. (Recognized.) 

" Here in front I see the spirit of a very large gen- 
tleman, who has been in spirit life about eighteen or 
twenty years, is connected with the lady by marriage ; 
light eyes, dark hair, and gives the name of Thomas 
Pope. (Not clearly recognized. ) 

" By the lady with a black hat on, sitting right in 
front of a little girl, I see the spirit of a man of medi- 
um height ; dark eyes, dark-brown hair, thin face, 
and seems to know the lady. I get the name of 
Wm. Whitcomb. (Not recognized by the lady, but 
recognized in the audience.) The spirit says, 4 It is 
so strange your mother does not know me.' (This 
was said to the gentleman who had recognized the 
spirit. The lady then recognized him.) 

" The spirit of a lady about fifty-two years of age 
when she passed away. Her hair is partially gray, 
and her eyes are blue. She gives the name of Martha 
Hurburt. (Recognized.) 

" The spirit of an old gentleman comes in the garb 



96 THE HEREAFTER. 

of a Quaker ; been in spirit life but a short time ; 
about sixy-five years of age when he passed away ; 
rather thick-set, high forehead, and thin whiskers, 
and gives the name of William Bell. (Not recog- 
nized.) 

" In the centre of the aisle are two Federal gen- 
erals. They have friends here. One is of medium 
height, dark hair, eyes, and complexion, and gives the 
name of General Rosseau. The other is- a younger 
man, heavy-set, broad shouldered, and gives the name 
of McPherson. (Both were recognized.) 

" By you, sir (pointing to the Reporter), is the 
spirit of a man, about forty-five years of age when he 
passed away ; hair turned gray ; an uncle on your 
mother's side. He gives the name of Daniel Drake. 
(My mother's uncle, with whom I was well ac- 
quainted when a boy.) 

" There, by the gentleman near the centre of the 
hall (pointing out the position), I see the spirits of 
two children. They are both small, and claim the 
gentleman as their father. Ida says, ' Father, Dan 
will stick to his promise ; you know what I mean.' 
(The gentleman replied, 4 I do.') 

" There is a spirit here who has been determined 
to be described. He says, ' There are those here who 
know me, and know how I passed away.' Tall, rather 
even built, dark hair and eyes, and gives the name oi 
Ed. Moody. (Recognized.) He says, c I would to 
God I had known before I came here what I know 
now, and that I had left that accursed liquor alone. 
Those I left on earth suffer, but not what I do.' 

" 1 see a spirit that will only give his first name ; 
tall, about five feet eleven inches ; narrow across the 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTURE LIFE. 97 

chest, light hair and whiskers. His first name is John. 
(Recognized by the friend with whom he was stand- 
ing.) 

"I see the spirit of a Quaker lady that has been in 
spirit life some years ; medium height, inclined to 
stoop ; hair rather gray, light eyes, and a relative of 
the gentleman by whom she is standing. She gives 
the name of Hannah Carter. (Last name recog- 
nized.) " 

Let me now pass without comment on the above to 

THE TRANCE. 

The explanation of the trance I shall give after I 
have quoted a narrative. I should be glad to quote 
many cases related in the same works, but the limits 
to which I wish to confine myself preclude the possi- 
bility. Many cases have come under my own obser- 
vation, but Mr. Owen's extensive reputation will give 
his narratives more weight than any I could relate as 
having fallen under my observation. 

A SISTER SUPPOSED TO BE LIVING ANNOUNCES HER 
OWN DEATH. 

The following case I abridge from the " Debatable 
Land": — 

"A Mrs. L., of the town of R.,in Massachusetts, 
had a dream one night in the month of November, 
1853, in which she saw her sister Esther, who was 
then dwelling in California, approach her bedside, 
and ask her to accompany her (the sister) to Cali- 
fornia. Mrs. L. at first objected ; but, upon the sis- 
ter's solicitation, who told her that they would ' soon 
be there,' and she should 'return before morning,' 
7 



98 THE HEREAFTER. 

she started. Giving her hand to her sister, she seemed 
to float over a vast space, and then descend very near 
a humble place, which the sister announced was her 
dwelling. The sisters entered, and Mrs. L. recognized 
her brother-in-law, sad, and in a mourning garment. 
The sister led her into the center of another room, 
where stood an open coffin, and pointed to her own 
body within it, pale in death. Mrs. L. gazed alter- 
nately at the body and the living form before her. To 
the silent query which her wonder expressed, the sis- 
ter replied, — 

" Yes, sister, that body was mine. But disease as- 
sailed it. I was taken with cholera, and I have passed 
to another world. I desired to show you this, that 
you might be prepared for the news that will soon 
reach you." 

After this Mrs. L. seemed to return in the same 
manner she had gone there. She awakened, and told 
her husband of her dream, and the fearful revelations 
it seemed to portend. He quieted her by the usual 
way of referring to the foolishness of dreams. 

Upon the evening of the same day, Mr. and Mrs. L., 
with a younger sister, Anne, who was living with 
them, were enjoying a quiet game of whist. It came 
Anne's turn to deal, and when the cards were handed 
to her, her arm suddenly assumed a rotary motion, 
and the cards flew in every direction. Mrs. L. turned 
to chide her for what she thought to be a foolish jest, 
when she beheld her eyes fixed upon her with a sol- 
emn yet affectionate anxiety, when she cried out, — 

" O, Anne, what is the matter ? Why do you 
look so ? " 

" Call me not Anne," was the reply. "I am Es- 
ther." 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OP A FUTUPE LIFE. 99 

"Anne!" 

" I tell you it is Esther who speaks to you, not 
Anne." 

" Her mind is gone ! " cried Mrs. L. to her husband. 
" She is mad ! O, that such a misfortune should ever 
have fallen on our family ! " 

" Your dream, Cecilia ! your dream of last night ! 
Have you forgotten whither I took you, and what you 
saw ? " 

" The shock was too much for Mrs. L.," says the 
narrative ; " she fainted." The sister remained en- 
tranced for nearly four hours, and when she awakened, 
she supposed she had been asleep, and seemed to have 
no recollection that she had been made the medium 
through whose organism her own sister's death had 
been announced. 

It turned out that in four weeks after this the mails 
confirmed the vision of Mrs. L., and the trance control 
of her sister, by stating that she had died of the chol- 
era on the day preceding the dream. 

A word or two with reference to 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF CONTROL, 

and I will leave this part of the subject. I have al- 
ready explained how J^our own spirits control your 
organizations. You will understand by this time that 
your spirit is in magnetic rapport with your brain. 
When I show you how one individual may magnet- 
ize another, and make him speak the magnetizer's 
thoughts, I think I demonstrated that one man may 
think through another's brain. Now if this magneti- 
zer should die to-night, to-morrow he may come back, 
magnetize his subject, as he did to-day, and, thinking 



100 THE HEREAFTEE. 

through his brain, that subject would speak his 
thoughts. Then he would be said to be entranced or 
under control. Magnetism is only the ladder that 
Jacob saw reaching up to heaven, adown which came 
the angels with their words of cheer to the children 
of earth. 

We are sometimes told that these manifestations are 
all produced by magnetism ! True : but do our inform- 
ers know that if there comes intelligence through the 
instrumentality of this magnetism, it is because there 
is an intelligent communicator at the other end of the 
wire ? Who ever thinks of stopping to quibble over 
a telegram ? Yet we could as easily explain a dispatch 
away, and say it was electricity, as to explain a dis- 
patch from the other world upon the principle of mag- 
netism. 

A gentleman once asked me how a physical manifes- 
tation was produced. I answered him by saying, — 

" Sir, I perceive you are a physical medium, though 
you are not aware of it. If you will hold my watch 
so that the chain hangs pendent, I will illustrate the 
matter to you." 

After he had taken the watch, I said, — 

" Now I have no physical magnetism of my own, — 
I mean the quality of magnetism necessary to produce 
physical manifestations, — so I shall be compelled to 
make a draft on you. Now I have thoroughly impreg- 
nated that chain with your magnetism, so that I can 
not move the magnetism in the neighborhood of the 
chain without moving the chain. Now I move my 
finger east and west, because I can more easily draw 
your magnetism after my finger than I can move it 
with my will power alone, although it is under the 



PHENOMENAL EVIDENCE OF A FUTUKE LIFE. 101 

control of my will ; and as I move my finger, the chain 
moves in the same direction. Now I change my mo- 
tion to the north and sonth, and the chain changes its 
motion to correspond. When I die, I can come back 
as a spirit and do the same thing." 

The reader will see by the argument I made in the 
first chapter, that the control of our bodies is a physi- 
cal manifestation of our spirits. But in this case the 
brain acts as a great lever, while the nerves appear to 
be the fulcrum. In physical manifestations there is a 
necessity for a kind of magnetism out of which a lever 
and fulcrum may be improvised. Hence the magnet- 
ism is more material around that class of individuals, 
and more easily seen ; therefore apparitions of physi- 
cal mediums are more common than of any other class 
of persons. 



102 THE HEREAFTER. 



CHAPTER IV. 

SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 

Why the Author goes to the Bible. — Materialistic Bible Writers. — Many of 
them did not believe in a Future Existence. — Job on the Witness Stand. — 
Job's Redeemer and the Worms. — Testimony of David. — His Character. — 
Solomon's Testimony and Character. — The Prophets. — New Testament Ev- 
idences. — A Change. — The Carnal and the Spiritual Man. — War between 
the Flesh and Spirit. — Does the dead Body arise? — Examination of partic- 
ular Texts. — Resurrection out of the Dead. — Jesus and Nicodemus. — Spirit 
of Jesus raised. — Paul's Houses. — Desire to depart. — Who are the Demons ? 
— Holy Ghost, what is it.' — Pentecostal Manifestations explained. — En- 
hancements. — Balaam, Peter, Paul, John. — Chips of the old Block. 

" For we know that if our earthly house of this 
tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, 
an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
(2 Cor. v. 1.) 

11 Shall man alone, 
Imperial man, be sown in barren ground, 
Less privileged than grain on which he feeds ? 
Is man, in whom alone is power to prize 
The bliss of being, or with previous pain 
Deplore its period, by the spleen of fate 
Severely doomed, death's single unredeemed?" 

Young. 

Thus far I have endeavored to adduce arguments 
from nature and science. I now propose to spend a 
little time in the Bible ; not that it will be any better 
demonstrated coming from that source, but to meet 
the objections thrown in against this view by a class 
of materialists who found their objections on that 
book. 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 103 

There are people in the world who would find it as 
easy to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, as 
that the whale swallowed Jonah, if the Bible only 
said so. Going on the principle that nothing is im- 
possible with God, they are ready to believe that he 
could, should he choose to do so, crowd three hundred 
and sixty-five days into the time of one hour. Such 
people must have their Bible harmonize with their 
theory, or they will reject the theory, no matter how 
conclusive the evidence. All the facts I quoted in 
the last chapter will not avail ; for if they are once 
convinced that facts are against their theory, supported 
by the Bible, they are ready, with the enthusiastic 
Frenchman, to say, "So much the worse for the 
facts ! r ' 

I am not undertaking to show that every Bible 
writer supported the doctrine of immortality ; for some 
of them — and I shall deal with them first — were 

GROSSLY MATERIALISTIC. 

Take, for illustration, Moses, who believed that the 
dead were conscious, but carefully excluded it from 
the Israelites, lest they should fall into the sin of nec- 
romancy, which, considering it would draw custom 
away from his brethren the Levites, was a great sin. 
Aaron and his sons would get no more heifers, kids, 
goats, lambs, sheep, doves, pigeons, &c, to kill; and 
their God would not get a chance to snuff roast animals ; 
for, be it understood, that although it was claimed that 
these things were cooked for the Lord, to keep him good- 
natured, he never got anything more than the smell of 
them. The priests performed all the masticating offices, 
and kindly relieved their Deity of all forebodings of 
nightmare caused by an overloaded stomach. 



104 THE HEREAFTER. 

Notwithstanding, Moses must have known that the 
dead were conscious, or he would not have forbidden 
intercourse with them. There would be little need 
of forbidding this intercourse with the dead if such 
intercourse is an impossibility. 

From Adam to David we find very little said about 
a future life of any kind. Indeed, I can not call to 
mind a single passage previous to the Babylonish cap- 
tivity which speaks of any hereafter whatever, either 
as a reward or a punishment for our actions in this life. 
The grave was a deep, dark abyss, in which all hopes 
were buried with the corpse. 

Pious materialists have seized on these doubts, thus 
expressed by these persons, and used them to prove 
their negative positions, while they have reached in 
every direction for such passages as they could com- 
promise to make out a resurrection of the body. I 
propose now to look at some of these passages, and 
show that the authors of them meant to teach that 

THEEE NEVER "WILL BE A FUTURE LIFE. 

I will examine the book of Job first. But before 
commencing the examination, I will inform the reader 
that only part of the book is actually the language of 
Job. Elihu was a believer in Spiritualism, as evinced 
in the introduction to his remarks, commencing in Job 
xxxii. The other two companions seem to be doubt- 
ful characters, who put everything in the hands of a 
"mysterious Providence," and did not pry into mat- 
ters much. But Job was an outspoken materialist, 
and an honest one, too. In chapter vii., verse 9, he 
is represented as saying, " As the cloud is consumed 
and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down to the grave 
shall come up no more." 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 105 

This text merely shows what Job's views of the 
future were. The following is another which is often 
used to demonstrate that the dead are unconscious. 

" For there is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, 
that it will sprout again, and that the tender branch 
thereof will not cease. Though the root thereof wax 
old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the 
ground: yet through the scent of water it will bud, 
and bring forth boughs like a plant. But man dieth, 
and wasteth away : yea, man giveth up the ghost, and 
where is he ? As the waters fail from the sea, and 
the flood decayeth and clrieth up : so man lieth down 
and riseth not : till the heavens be no more, they shall 
not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep." (Job 
xiv. 7-12.) . 

Here all hope is taken away, for if men are not to 
live again till " the heavens be no more," "the hope 
of man is destroyed; " and if, as Peter says, " the heav- 
ens and the earth which are now, are reserved unto 
fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of un- 
godly men " (2 Pet. iii. 7), this punishment being 
called the " second death," from which they tell us 
there is no resurrection (Rev. xx. 14, 15), then 
Job could hardly expect a life in the future at any 
time. The expression, " till the heavens be no more," 
was certainly intended to be very emphatic. The 
next passage expresses Job's utter hopelessness of any 
hereafter. He says, — 

u O,that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that 
thou wouldst keep me secret until thy wrath be past, 
that thou wouldst appoint me a set time and remem- 
ber me ! " 

This is as much as if he had expressed a wish that 



106 THE HEEEAFTEE. 

there might be a future for him, for if this was all 
there was of life, then Job's life thus far had been a 
failure. His doubts then assume the form of a ques- 
tion : " If a man die, shall he live again ? " (Verse 
14.) He had just said, " There is hope of a tree, if 
it be cut down, that it will sprout again ; " but now 
he would ask concerning man. But as none could 
answer that question satisfactorily, he was compelled 
to bide his time, and wait for the answer which the 
future might give. " All the days of my appointed 
time," says he, " will I wait till my change come. Thou 
shalt call, and I will answer thee : thou wilt have a de- 
sire to the work of thine hands." Job evidently sup- 
posed he would return to the elements out of which he 
had been created. If the expressions I have read from 
him do not testify to that, please read the following : — 

"And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, 
and the rock is removed out of his place. The waters 
wear the stones : thou Avashest away the things which 
grow out of the dust of the earth ; and thou destroyest 
the hope of man. Thou prevailest forever against him, 
and he passeth : thou changest his countenance, and 
sendest him away. His sons come to honor, and he 
knoweth it not ; and they are brought low, but he 
perceiveth it not of them." (Verses 18-21.) 

Job got the advantage so completely in this argu- 
ment, that one of the bigoted clergymen became 
angry with him, and accused him of egotism, " iniqui- 
ty," " craftiness," being deceived by his own " heart," 
and then expatiates upon the utter depravity of man, 
and hints that he belongs to the " congregation of hyp- 
ocrites," and other such remarks characteristic of the 
clergy generally. But he was careful to tell Job that 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 107 

he knew nothing that they did not know, and hinted 
at his presumption to dare to express an opinion be- 
fore these " gra}~-headed " gentry of the cloth. In 
short, they attempted to ostracize Job entirely, and 
make him assent to their theology, and profess a belief 
in that for which Job wanted the evidence. Job's 
children were all dead, and he, covered with sores, 
might never recover. He wanted the evidence of a 
future life; gave expression to his doubts, and the 
reason why he doubted. Instead of answering him 
as they should have done, they appealed to their cleri- 
cal dignity. No wonder he said " Miserable comfort- 
ers are ye all " (xvi. 1), when, instead of answering, 
they abused him. 

" If I wait," he continues, " the grave is mine house ; 
I have made my bed in darkness. I have said to cor- 
ruption, Thou art my father ; to the worm, Thou art 
my mother, and my sister, and where is noiv my hope ? 
As for my hope, who shall see it ? They shall go down 
to the bars of the pit, when oar rest is together in the 
dust." (Job xvii. 13-16.) Could the language of 
despair be more emphatic? Does not Job use every 
means at his command to express the utter hopeless- 
ness of the future ? 

But those who wish to demonstrate that Job be- 
lieved in a re-living of the old body refer us to Job 
xix. 23-26. 

" O, that my words were now written ! O, that they 
were printed in a book! that they were graven with an 
iron pen and lead in the rock forever ! For I know that 
my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter 
day upon the earth : and though after my skin worms 
destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. " 



108 THE HEREAFTER. 

It is a characteristic of theologians to make every 
expression apply to the future that they can. Job 
had said, in the fourteenth chapter, that he could not 
be raised until the "heavens (which are to pass away 
with the earth) are no more." But now the same 
individuals would have us believe that Job's Redeemer 
stands upon the earth when there is no earth on which 
to stand. Is it not much easier to believe that Job 
was speaking of his final triumph over the disease 
that was preying upon his flesh? Bildad had just been 
threatening him with the anger of God. It having 
been settled by Eliphaz that Job was a very wicked 
man, Bildad told about the terrible wrath of the Lord. 
" The light of the wicked shall be put out ; " " the 
gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall 
prevail against him ; " " his remembrance shall perish 
from the earth," &c. Now this was all meant for 
Job, and he understood it so, or he would not have 
accused them of "persecuting" him. (Verse 22.) 
It was but natural that he should get confidence in 
himself after he had been thus abused, and boast that 
although worms were eating away his flesh, and it 
appeared to them that the curse of God was upon 
him, the time would come when he would get well 
of this, and his flesh becoming sound, he should see 
God before he died. The latter day that he talked 
about was evidently a boast that he should live to be 
an old man, although they had piously told him lie 
should not. No doubt they wished differently, for their 
theology was at stake on what they said about Job. 
Job happened to be right, for he lived to be an 
old man, and acknowledged that he saw God, as fol- 
lows : — 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 109 

" I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear ; 
but now mine eye seeth thee." (Job xlii. 5.) 

David. There are doubtful expressions in the Psalms 
of David, and as David was not the author of all the 
Psalms it is claimed that he sung, it is probable that he 
sang some the sentiment of which he may not have ac- 
cepted. That the author of some of the Psalms was a 
materialist, the following expressions will demonstrate : 

"For in death there is no remembrance of thee : in 
the grave who shall give thee thanks ? " (Ps. vi. 5.) 

" Wilt thou show wonders to the dead ? shall the 
dead arise and praise thee ? . . . Shall thy wonders 
be known in the dark ? and thy righteousness in the 
land of forgetfulness ? " (Ps. lxxxviii. 10-12.) 

" The dead praise not the Lord, neither any that go 
down into silence." (Ps. cxv. 17.) 

" His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth ; 
in that very day his thoughts perish." (Ps. cxlvi. 4.) 

David's case was utterly hopeless ; but our materi- 
alists have nothing of which to boast in their ancient 
prototype. His character was such that it would have 
furnished occupation for the law officials of our day, 
had he not lived too early to elicit their attention. He 
had four wives and ten concubines, was a thief, 
murderer, bigamist, and adulterer, and became king 
through the insurrection of Samuel. (See 1 Sam. 
xvi. 14-23 ; xviii. 25-2T ; xxviii. 9-12 ; 2 Sam. xi. 
15 ; 1 Sam. xxii. 2 ; xviii. 27 ; xxv. 39, 43 ; 2 Sam. 
xi. 4 ; xv. 16 ; 1 Kings i. 2, 3.) 

Solomon is the next materialist who is quoted in 
proof of their views. I give the quotations below : — 

" Man hath no pre-eminence above a beast. . . . 
All go unto one place, all are of the dust, and all turn 
to dust again." (Eccl. iii. 19, 20.) 



110 THE HEREAFTER. 

"For to him that is joined to all the living there is 
hope : for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For 
the living know that they shall die : but the dead 
know not anything, neither have they any more a 
reward ; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also 
their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now 
perished ; neither have they any more a portion for 
ever in anything that is done under the sun." (Eccl. 
ix. 4-6.) 

Was there ever a case of more utter hopelessness ? 
Never to have a reward in the future, nor a portion 
in anything that is done under the sun ! In view of 
this, Solomon felt it was vain to attempt to live a true 
and noble life ; for no matter how good he should be, 
there would be "no more a reward ; " hence he pushed 
blindly ahead into every kind of extravagance. It is 
said that he had a thousand wives and concubines (1 
Kings xi. 3) ; but as that was at least five hundred more 
than was necessary, I think the picture was a little 
overdrawn. 

The prophets, being necromancers, had a dim idea 
of a future of some kind, and now and then gave ex- 
pression to their belief; but often their ideas were 
clothed in such dubious language, that you can not 
tell whether they were talking of a resurrection of 
the body or the spirit; whether they believed that 
each individual had a spirit which would continue 
after the death of his body, or only the spirits of the 
good would live. 

Thus the Sadducees were sure there was no hereaf- 
ter, and the Pharisees were sure there was ; and as 
each could sustain his views by the Bible, both were 
sure they were right. Coming down to New Testa- 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. Ill 

ment times, we find a different light shining on the 
subject. 

THE SPIRITUAL NATURE OF MAN 

is clearly recognized, not only in the text at the head 
of this chapter, but in numerous other passages of 
Scripture. The contrast between the two is clearly 
drawn in the following : — 

" Walk in the spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust 
of the flesh. For the "flesh lusteth against the spirit, 
and the spirit against the flesh ; and these are contra- 
ry the one to the other." (Gal. v. 16, 17.) 

The flesh only desires such things as will gratify its 
appetites or passions, while the spirit demands that 
which is necessary to its higher development. This 
was not only the experience of Paul, but of every in- 
telligent person of the nineteenth century. We all 
know that we can not gratify our animal appetites 
and passions extravagantly, without either clogging 
or weakening the energies of the intellect ; hence 
this war between the spirit and the flesh. In the 
passage under consideration Paul takes the existence 
of the spiritual nature for granted, without attempt- 
ing to prove it, and as his ipse dixit is the end of au- 
thority with a large class, I only need to give it as I 
find it in his writings. 

Paul ever strives to exhibit the difference between 
the carnal man and the spiritual man. The carnal 
man is called a babe (1 Cor. hi. 1 ; Heb. v. 13), be- 
cause he is not able yet to digest spiritual food, — his 
spirit is yet undeveloped. The carnal mind " is not 
subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be " 
(Rom. viii. 7), because, as we have before seen, the 



112 THE HEEEAFTEK. 

law of God is the continual development of our intel- 
lects, and whatever interferes with that is at war with 
this law. 

This spirit that Paul talks about is the controlling 
influence about us, aud can not only comprehend to a 
certain extent intelligences outside of itself, but by a 
process of introversion it may even take its own 
measure. Hence, the " spirit of man which is within 
him " " knoweth the things of a man." (1 Cor. 
ii. 11.) There are really two men in one, — " a natu- 
ral body and a spiritual body " (1 Cor. xv. 44), — one 
dwelling within the other. 

Further evidence of this fact may be found in 1 
Cor. v. 5, where Paul insists that a disorderly mem- 
ber should be delivered over to " Satan, for the de- 
struction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in 
the day of the Lord Jesus." In all my travels I have 
not found a materialist who could harmonize that 
passage with his theoiy. The fact is clear, that Paul 
considered the spirit as a separate entity, which was 
being dragged down into deeper darkness by the 
flesh ; but which could await the destruction of the 
flesh, and work out its salvation better without it 
than with it. In passing, it may be well to remark 
that the word Satan always means an adversary, and 
it takes very hard twisting to get it to mean the 
pagan devil, which has become one of the staples of 
the Orthodox church of to-day. 

I have shown that it is impossible to raise the dead ; 
I want to show by the Bible that there will be a 

EESUEEECTION OUT OF THE DEAD BODY, 

or a resurrection of the spirit. There are passages 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 113 

which speak of a resurrection of the body, and before 
I examine the proofs of my own position I will notice 
some of them. Perhaps the strongest text in favor of 
this theory is Matt, xxvii. 52, 53. It reads, "And 
the graves were opened; and many bodies of the 
saints which slept, arose and came out of the graves 
after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, 
and appeared unto many." This is only related by 
one writer, and he was certainly using metaphorical 
language, when he told us the " graves were opened," 
— such as we find in Paul's language, where he tells 
us that Christ " hath abolished death." But people 
have been dying ever since Paul made that announce- 
ment. If death was abolished, it was because Jesus 
had demonstrated that men's ideas concerning death 
were incorrect. If the saints appeared % it demon- 
strated that those who were thought to be in their 
graves had come out. Let us suppose that the bodies 
of these saints had come up out of their graves, the 
query follows what became of them when they disap- 
peared. Did they go and lay themselves down in their 
graves, and after they had died again bury themselves ? 
If this is an awkward question, it is because it is hard 
to answer ; but they could not have gone to heaven, 
for Paul says, " flesh and blood can not inherit the 
kingdom of God." (1 Cor. xv. 50.) 

If the bodies of the saints arose, then it must have 
been their spirit bodies, such as Paul spoke of in 
1 Cor. xv. That these spirit bodies do arise and are 
seen, the foregoing pages fully demonstrate. I will 
refer to another supposed objection, found in 1 Thess. 
iv. 14-17, before I pass to notice texts upon the other 
side of the subject. Aside from the doubtful passage 



114 THE HEREAFTER. 

in Rev. xx. 12-14, this is probably the strongest pas- 
sage in the Bible for a literal resurrection. The book 
of Revelation, it should be remembered, came within 
one vote of being uninspired, and its mystical lan- 
guage has suffered the infliction of all kinds of inter- 
pretations ; and as I can hardly expect to make this 
dream harmonize with common sense, after so many 
failures of zealous theologians, I promise to pass it 
just now. I may have some use for it after a while. 

But to the passage, " For if we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in 
Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto 
you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive 
and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not 
prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord him- 
self shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the 
voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God : 
and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we 
which are alive and remain, shall be caught up to- 
gether with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in 
the air ; and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 

I do not doubt that Jesus arose again, if he ever 
died, and people generally do die after they have 
staid here a while. Hence, I believe that any who 
sleep in him will God bring with him. Neither do I 
believe that any who were alive at Jesus' coming 
went before their friends who were asleep. The 
question might be asked, who did Paul mean by 
Christ ? Let Paul answer. 

" For as the body is one, and hath many members, 
and all the members of that one body, being many, are 
one body, so also is Christ." (1 Cor. xii. 12.) " Now 
ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 115 

(Ibid. vs. 27.) " So we, being many, are one body in 
Christ, and every one members one of another." (Rom. 
xii. 5.) 

Nothing is plainer than that the church has the 
wrong position on this point. All this talk about 
being " baptized into Christ " (Rom. vi. 5 ; 1 Cor. 
xii. 13), being "brought to Christ " (Gal. iii. 24), &c, 
has reference to a spiritual condition of the church. 
This I can prove when it is necessary. Now, in order 
to show this union of the dead in Christ with the " we 
which are alive," I will once more quote Paul. 

" That in the dispensation of the fullness of times, 
he might gather together in one all things in Christ, 
both which are in heaven and which are on earth: 
even in him." (Eph. i. 10.) 

Here is the union. This was the intention of the 
establishment of the church, that the " whole family 
in heaven and earth " might be united (Eph. iii. 15). 
The dead in Christ will arise first, and we will follow 
in our spiritual development, and if not before our 
spiritual resurrection, at least at that time shall 
we meet them. It will take hard twisting to make 
a literal resurrection of the body out of this, es- 
pecially in contradiction to what I shall hereafter 
quote. 

That there is a spiritual resurrection, I infer from 
the fact that in a majority of places I find it is a res- 
urrection out of something, and not of something. To 
illustrate : in Phil. iii. 11, I read, " If by any means I 
might attain unto the resurrection of the dead ; " but 
the Greek of this is, " ex anastasin ton nekron" — " res- 
urrection out of the dead ; " for ex always signifies 
out of: it is the word from which we have derived 



116 THE HEREAFTER. 

our " exodus." As another evidence, please read the 
following from Luke xx. 85, 36 : — 

" But they which will be accounted worthy to ob- 
tain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, 
neither marry nor are given in marriage. Neither can 
they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels ; 
and are the children of God, being the children of the 
resurrection." 

Here the words translated " resurrection from the 
dead," are " anastasis tees eh neJcron ; " clearly setting 
forth the idea of an exodus out of the body when it is 
dead. As further evidence that the author of this 
language meant to convey the idea herein set forth, 
read the following verse : — 

" Now that the dead are raised, even Moses showed 
at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of 
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Ja- 
cob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the 
living : for all live unto him." 

It will be remembered that the Sadducees deny the 
resurrection of the dead, and Jesus used this Scrip- 
ture to demonstrate the reality of the resurrection. 
Had he been pointing forward to a future resurrec- 
tion, his argument was illy drawn, besides unfortu- 
nately expressed. The Pharisees believed that there 
was a resurrection of the dead — both angels and 
spirits being raised (see Acts, xxiii. 8), whilst the Sad- 
ducees denied the theory. Jesus takes sides with the 
Pharisees on the subject, and argues from what God 
said to Moses, that the dead are already raised. He 
does not say that the "dead are to be raised," but 
" are raised " now. Inasmuch as God is the God 
pf Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they are living, not 



SCEIPTUEAL EVIDENCES. 117 

going to live, " for God is not a God of the dead, but 
of the living, for all live unto him." 

In Luke xxiv. 46, I discover that Jesus was raised 
out of the dead, for I find that same Avord eh. In 
Acts hi. 15 ; iv. 10 ; and xiii. 30, all, speaking of 
Jesus' resurrection, call it an exodus out of the body, 
for the same Greek term eh is found every time. 

In John hi. 1-8, Jesus referred to this resurrection, 
under the title of a new birth. When Nicodemus 
came to him, and acknowledged his superior gifts, 
Jesus told him he " must be born again." " Except 
a man be born again," said Jesus, " he can not see the 
kingdom of God." Now, as Paul tells us, " flesh and 
blood can not inherit the kingdom of God " (1 Cor. 
xv. 50), and Jesus told Nicodemus that unless he was 
" born again he could not see the kingdom of God," 
it is evident that this birth is different from that 
which ushered us into this world. What is it ? This 
was the question with Nicodemus. Jesus says, " That 
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is 
born of the Spirit is spirit," or " is a spirit," as Saw- 
yer's translation more properly renders it. Here we 
get a definite idea of this birth : it is the resurrection 
of the spirit from the dead ; it is born out of this 
world into the next, as we were born into this. The 
next two verses settle this beyond all dispute : 
" Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born 
again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence 
it cometh, and whither it goeth ; so is every one that 
is born of the Spirit." 

The marvel is, how that, in the next birth, we 
should be like the wind — that we should not be able 



118 . THE HEREAFTER. 

to tell whence it came or whither it went. That it 
was the case, was fully illustrated in the case of Jesus, 
who, after his death, appeared in a room, the doors 
being shut (John xx. 19) ; but no one knew whence 
he came, or how he got into that room ; and when he 
departed, no one could tell how he got out of the 
room, or whither he went. 

After a while I shall make a special argument on 
the apparition of Jesus, to prove that his body did 
not appear. But I can not pass without bringing up 
corroborating testimony concerning the resurrection 
of Jesus' spirit at the death of his body. In 1 Pet. 
iii. 18-20, we read, " For Christ also hath once suf- 
fered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might 
bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but 
quickened by the Spirit. By which also he went and 
preached unto the spirits in prison, which some time 
were disobedient, when once the long suffering of God 
waited in the days of Noah." 

" The best scholars," says a recent writer, "inform 
us that a better rendering would be, ' Christ suffered 
the stroke of death in the flesh, but survived it in the 
spirit.'" The Greek is, " thanatotheis mean sarki" 
(absolute dying of the flesh) ; " zo-opoithes de tospneu- 
mati " (a continuation of the life of the spirit). Lit- 
erally the flesh died, but the spirit lived. There is 
no possible way of dodging the force of this expres- 
sion. The points in this passage are as follows : — 

1. When Jesus' flesh was put to death his spirit 
was quickened. 

2. He went, after the death of the body, and 
preached to other disembodied spirits ; and, 

3. These spirits to whom he preached had at some 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 119 

time been disobedient. Remember it was the sinning, 
and not the preaching, that was done in the days of 
Noah. The usual way of dodging the force of this 
passage is to claim that this preaching was done be- 
fore their death by Jesus or Noah through the influ- 
ence of this spirit ; that is, it was done in the days 
of Noah, and they were destroyed, and put in the 
prison of death to await the judgment day. But 
these spirits, not their bodies, are in prison. It takes 
a great deal of straining and compromising to make 
this passage fit the theory, and then it is only an 
apology. The words " by which " in the passage 
make the matter quite definite. It sIioavs that by 
means of surviving the stroke of death in the spirit 
he was enabled to preach to spirits in prison. An- 
other passage, found in the sixth verse of the next 
chapter, makes the point very definite indeed. It 
reads, " For, for this cause was the gospel preached 
also to them that are dead, that they might be judged 
according to men in the flesh, but live according to 
God in the spirit." 

But who preached the gospel to the dead ? In the 
first quotation we find that Jesus preached to the 
spirits who were disobedient in Noah's day, and here 
we find the gospel was preached to them that are 
dead. Those to whom this gospelwas preached are 
contrasted with those who are alive, " that they might 
be judged according to men in the flesh." If this 
gospel was preached to the dead before they died, 
where is the contrast between them and those who 
are living ? Those who are living will die some time, 
and then this difference between them and the rest of 
the dead will be gone. The intention of this passage 



120 THE HEREAFTER. 

is to show that those who had never had an opportunity 
to hear the gospel while living should have that priv- 
ilege afterward. I have said enough, perhaps, on 
the resurrection of the spirit, and now I will attempt 
to show from other parts of the Bible that 

THE SPIRIT SURVIVES THE DEATH OF THE BODY. 

On this part of the subject, I must call attention 
again to the Scripture at the head of this chapter: 
" For we know, that if our earthly house of this tab- 
ernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an 
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 
For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 
upon with our house which is from heaven : if so be 
that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For 
we that are id this tabernacle do groan, being bur- 
dened : not for that we would be unclothed, but 
clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up 
of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the self- 
same thing, is God, who also hath given unto us the 
earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always con- 
fident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the 
body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by 
faith, not by sight) : we are confident, I say, and will- 
ing rather to be absent from the body, and to be pres- 
ent with the Lord." 

The tabernacle Paul is speaking of here is our nat- 
ural body. The building of God not made with 
hands is the spiritual body ; but while we are clothed 
with our natural bodies, we can not be clothed with 
our spiritual bodies. One of these bodies is natural, 
or terrestrial, the other is spiritual, heavenly, or celes- 
tial. (See 1 Cor. xv. 40.) The natural body is 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 121 

sown, or dies ; the spiritual body is raised. (1 Cor. 
xv. 44.) This is well argued in the whole of the 
latter part of 1 Cor. xv. In order to better illus- 
trate the subject, I will quote verses 35-47 of this 
chapter : — 

" But some man will say, How are the dead raised 
up ? and with what bod}^ do they come ? Thou fool ! 
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die ; and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not 
that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance 
of wheat, or some other grain. But God giveth it a 
body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own 
body. All flesh is not the same flesh ; but there is 
one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, an- 
other of fishes, and another of birds. There are also 
celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial ; but the glory 
of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial 
is another. There is one glory of the sun, and an- 
other glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
stars : for one star differeth from another star in glory. 
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in 
corruption ; it is raised in incorruption : it is sown in 
dishonor ; it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness ; 
it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body ; it is 
raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and 
there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The 
first man Adam was made a living soul ; the last 
Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that 
was not first which is spiritual, but that which is nat- 
ural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first 
man is of the earth, earthy ; the second man is the 
Lord from heaven." 

The spirit seems to have no control of the spirit 



122 THE HEREAFTER. 

body until the " natural body," or this " tabernacle is 
dissolved." This body is said to be " from heaven," 
and " in the heavens," because the elements are 
higher in the order of development than the elements 
of our natural bodies, for Paul shows that it is raised 
out of the natural body, and calls it " the Lord from 
heaven." 

The natural body is a "burden " to the spirit, and 
for this reason " we do groan, desiring to be clothed 
upon with our house which is from heaven." Then 
u mortality will be swallowed up of life." The strong 
contrast which Paul here draws shows his estimate of 
this life to be but as death compared to the life we 
shall have when we shall " shuffle off this mortal 
coil." If, then, there were to be a resurrection of 
our mortal bodies at a future time, we shall be un- 
clothed again, our heavenly house would be taken 
from us. No worse calamity could happen, if I un- 
derstand Paul's reasoning, than to again drive us back 
to our physical bodies. Well might we cry out again, 
as he did in olden times, u O, wretched man that I am ! 
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " 
(Rom/vii. 24.) For he would again be cursed with 
that body from which he " groaned earnestly " to be 
delivered. 

In another letter Paul uses somewhat similar lan- 
guage (Phil. i. 21-24), showing his intense desire for 
a state of more freedom. He reasons thus : " For to 
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live 
in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor ; yet what I 
shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt 
two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ ; 
which is far better. Nevertheless to abide in the 
flesh is more needful for you." 



• SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 123 

I need not again remind the reader that Christ is 
the church in the spirit world and the mundane world ; 
hence he claimed that, if he lived, it would be of 
service to the church. If, however, he was to depart, 
he would be with Christ, for the redeemed in heaven 
would meet him, and he never more would be " in 
perils amongst false brethren," robbers, &c. But he 
calls dying a " departure ; " and when he departs, he 
is with Christ. So it is not an unconscious state of 
existence. If he is an advantage to Christ while 
here, he will be with him when he departs. 

We are told that Paul when he spoke of a departure 
meant that he wanted to be translated to heaven with- 
out seeing death. Then why is it he says " to abide in 
the flesh is more needful for you " ? Those who hold 
this position hold that the flesh will be translated. 
But Paul brings this departure and flesh in direct 
contrast. 

DEMONS. 

A demon is the spirit of an evil-disposed person. 
Formerly it signified spirits without reference to char- 
acter, thus : — 

" Demon — The spirit of a dead man." — Jones. 

"Demon — A spirit, either angel or fiend." — Cud- 
worth, 

" The demons of Paganism, Judaism, and Chris- 
tianity were spirits of dead men." — A. Campbell. 

" The notion that demons, or the souls of the dead, 
having power over the living was universally preva- 
lent among the heathen of those times, and believed by 
many Christians." — Dr. Lardner. 

" For what man of virtue is there who does not 
know that those souls which are severed from the 



124 THE HEREAFTER. 

fleshly bodies in the battles by the sword are re- 
ceived by the ether, that purest of elements, and 
joined to the company which are placed among the 
stars ; that they become good demons and propitious 
heroes, and show themselves as such to their 'posterity 
aftemvard f" — Josephus, Wars of the Jeivs, b. vi. c. i. § 5. 

In a pamphlet I published in 1872,* I made the fol- 
lowing remark on this subject, which I reproduce 
here : — 

" Demons, spirits, and angels, and sometimes gods, 
seem to have about the same meaning. Demon is 
only a derivative of the word Be, from which we 
have the words Divine, Deity, Devil, Demon, &c, and 
wherever one of these words occurs, it more fre- 
quently refers to a human departed spirit than to 
anything else. The original of the word Theos, which 
is nearly the same as De, — both evidently referring 
to the same thing, — signified to rim, and was applied 
to the sun and the seven planets, as they seem to run 
through the mansions — signs of the zodiac — of the 
heavens : but these spirits, who were angels or mes- 
sengers of God, who also run about the universe, 
came in time to have the same appellation." 

I shall only make a few quotations on this point, 
enough to show that Bible writers had evidence of 
the existence of the spirit from this source. The 
word demon had become corrupted, in New Testament 
times, to mean the spirit of an evil-disposed person. 
It is thus I shall use the word. I shall only give 
enough Scripture on this for my purpose. 

* Astrological Origin of Jehovah-God. To be had of the author, 
or of William White & Co. Price, fifteen cents ; postage, two cents. 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 125 

" And his fame went throughout all Syria : and they 
brought unto him all sick people that were taken with 
divers diseases and torments, and those which were 
possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, 
and those that had the palsy; and he healed them." 
(Matt. iv. 24.) 

" When the even was come, they brought unto him 
many that were possessed with devils : and he cast out 
the spirits with his word, and healed all that were 
sick. And when he was come to the other side, into 
the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two 
possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, ex- 
ceeding fierce, so that no man might pass by that way. 
And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to 
do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God ? art thou come 
hither to torment us before the time ? And there 
was a good way off from them an herd of many swine, 
feeding. So the devils besought him, sa}-ing, If thou 
cast us out, suffer us to go aAvay into the herd of 
swine." (Matt. viii. 16, 28-31.) 

These are enough to show that something was be- 
lieved to be cast out of persons. Jesus called them 
demons. He did not dispute the idea believed by 
everybody, that demons were departed human spirits, 
and, accepting the word, he could not but accept the 
idea it conveyed. If he had intended to give it a 
new definition, it should have been recorded so we 
could have known it. 

In John vii. 20, the Pharisees claimed that Jesus 
had a devil ; and in the forty-eighth verse of the next 
chapter they give their reasons for believing he was 
obsessed by a devil (the original is demon). He 
was a Samaritan; and, as Samaritans never were 



126 THE HEREAFTER. 

controlled by good spirits, of course lie was controlled 
by a devil. All admitted that he was controlled by 
something ; the only quarrel was whether it was a good 
spirit or a bad one. If the fact could only be estab- 
lished that he was a Samaritan, then they would be 
sure it was an evil spirit, for, like the modern church, 
they never thought of judging a tree by its fruit. 

In Acts xvi. 16-18, we read of a lady who was pos- 
sessed of a spirit of divination, who brought her mas- 
ter much gain by soothsaying, which was expelled by 
Paul. 

THE HOLY GHOST. 

The original of this word is pneumati Jiagion, which 
signifies a good spirit. Had it always been translated 
"holy spirit" it might have had the disadvantage of 
being less theological than the way it is ; but this 
would have been more than compensated by having a 
common-sense translation, in harmony with the truth. 

I contend that this word always has reference to 
good spirits, or spirit emanations which are calculated 
to benefit those upon whom they descend, and that it 
never in a single instance has reference to the supposed 
third person in the Trinity. I know the objector will 
refer to the case of the mother of Jesus to make out 
his argument ; but I shall have no reply to make to 
that, only to hint that that affair had all been well 
enough if Mary had not had another husband, or at 
least expected to have. 

Below I give a few passages containing this word. 
The reader will see how easy it is to read them " good 
spirit." 

" But whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 127 

that speak }^e : for it is not ye that speak, but the Holy 
Ghost." (Mark xiii. 11.) " And it was revealed unto 
him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death 
before he had seen the Lord's Christ." (Luke ii. 26.) 
" But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that be- 
lieve on him should receive : for the Holy Ghost was 
not yet given ; because that Jesus was not yet glori- 
fied." (John vii. 39.) " Until the day in which he was 
taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had 
given commandments unto the apostles whom he had 
chosen." (Acts i. 2.) " Ye stiff-necked, and uncircum- 
cised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy 
Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." (Acts vii. 51.) 
" Who, when they were come down, prayed for them, 
that they might receive the Holy Ghost. Then laid 
they their hands on them, and they received the Holy 
Ghost. And when Simon saw, that through laying 
on of the apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, 
he offered them money." (Acts vhi. 15, 17, 18.) 

These passages show that what we call spirits they 
call Holy Ghost. I shall only criticise one or two pas- 
sages containing this word, enough to make out a case, 
showing that when they talked about the Holy Ghost 
they were referring to departed human spirits, and 
never to a holy, indescribable, imponderable something, 
calculated to make fools stare, women hide, and cler- 
gymen pray. If we could only take all the nonsense 
out of certain words which have their place in the 
Bible, by the grace of aspiring ecclesiasticism, and 
allow it to become a common-sense book, it would be 
better for the Bible, even though it might be a little 
hard on the clergy. 

In John xiv. 16-19 we read about a Comforter. 



128 THE HEREAFTER. 

Jesus had been discoursing of a Comforter that would 
be sent to them. "Even the Spirit of truth ; whom 
the world can not receive, because it seeth him not, 
neither knoweth him : but ye know him ; for he 
clwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not 
leave you comfortless : I will come to you. Yet a lit- 
tle while, and the world seeth me no more ; but ye 
see me : because I live, ye shall live also." 

The world can not receive this Comforter, " because 
it seeth him not." So it is the masculine gender. 
" He dwells with you, and shall be in you." But this 
Comforter that comes seems to make them clairvoyant ; 
for, although the world can not see Jesus, the disciples 
shall see him, for Jesus will live even after they think 
they have killed him. The twenty-sixth verse tells us 
more about this Comforter that Jesus promised. " But 
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the 
Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all 
things, and bring all things to your remembrance, 
whatsoever I have said unto you." 

So the Comforter and the " Holy Ghost " are the 
same. This Holy Ghost (good spirit) is really a per- 
son that teaches the disciples. I pass to the fulfillment 
of the prophecy. 

" And they were all filled with* the Holy Ghost, 
and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit 
gave them utterance." (Acts ii. 4.) 

The word " Holy Ghost," be it remembered, should 
be "good spirit," or "holy spirit." I will here call 
attention to another point : there is no Greek word 
for "the" in the original. So, instead of reading 
" the Holy Ghost," please read " a good spirit." That 
will dispense with a deal of ecclesiastical thunder, but 



SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 129 

it will be better for the text. Being filled with " a 
good spirit," " they began to speak with other tongues," 
or in other languages, " as the Spirit," that is, this 
good spirit that filled them, " gave them utterance," 
or spoke through their organisms. When Stephen was 
filled with the Holy Ghost (Acts vi. 3, 5 ; vii. 55), they 
that sat in the council " saw his face as it had been the 
face of an angel." (vii. 15.) So the Holy Ghost, look- 
ing through his organism, appeared like an angel ; 
neither " could they resist the wisdom by which he 
spoke." So this spirit, controlling him and looking 
through his face, was too wise for them. 

In the verse under review, the Spirit gave them ut- 
terance in foreign languages. So it must have been 
some spirit that understood those languages. They 
were in the habit of speaking in languages that they 
knew nothing of, nor did they know the interpretation 
of the languages they spoke ; hence they had to have 
another influence come and control some one else to 
interpret these languages. (See 1 Cor. xiv. 4, 5, 6, 27, 
28 ; xii. 10.) The fact that the Holy Ghost, or good 
spirit, could talk through one organism in an unknown 
tongue, and through another organism could interpret 
what he had said — or another Holy Ghost could do 
it if he could not — through the first organism, de- 
monstrates that these holy ghosts were departed hu- 
man spirits. 

Paul found a great deal of fault with the Corinthians 
because they spoke in other tongues when there was 
no interpreter present (1 Cor. xiv. 26-32), and told 
them that " the spirits of the prophets are subject to 
the prophets." But these spirits that he talked about 
are what in other places are called "holy ghosts;" 
9 



130 THE HERE AFTER. 

and lie surely would not want to rebel against one of 
the Trinity, and scold his instruments for the confu- 
sion they were causing, accusing them of not being 
" decent," and telling the brethren to hold the " Holy 
Ghost " in check. 

Peter tells them that this is in fulfillment of the proph- 
ecy of Joel, where it was pronounced that they " should 
see visions," and " dream dreams," after the pouring 
out of the Spirit of God. I believe development is in 
the order of God ; and as magnetism is the element of 
development, it is the "spirit of God." This is at 
times called the " Holy Ghost," but not near so often 
as are human spirits. 

THE TRANCE. 

I have already explained this in my explanation of 
Spirit Control. The subject entranced is always mag- 
netized ; usually the eyes roll up and the eyelids close, 
shutting out external objects from the sight. Fre- 
quently, however, after the subject has been entranced 
a number of times, the control is quite as perfect with 
the eyes open. In Num. xxiv. 4, we read that Balaam 
was entranced, " but having his eyes wide open." The 
prophecy being uttered under this condition, was sup- 
posed to be more perfect. In Acts x. 10, we read that 
Peter became entranced, " And he became very hun- 
gry, and would have eaten : but while they made ready, 
he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a 
certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a 
great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to 
the earth." 

In the fifth verse of the next chapter he again re- 
fers to the matter as follows: " I was in the city of 



SCEIPTUKAL EVIDENCES. 131 

Joppa, praying : and in a trance I saw a vision, a cer- 
tain vessel descending, as it had been a great sheet, let 
down from heaven by four corners ; and it came even 
to me." That it was a spirit that entranced him is 
evident from the nineteenth verse of chapter ten. 
" While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said 
unto him, Behold, three men seek thee." 

In verse twenty-two this spirit is called a " a holy 
angel." If a " holy angel " is a " spirit," it is a " holy 
spirit," which is the same as a " holy ghost." But in 
the thirtieth verse this spirit, " holy ghost," or " angel " 
is called a "man ... in bright clothing;" and it 
must thence be a spirit of a man. In Acts xxii. 17, 
Paul tells us he was in a trance. " And it came to 
pass, that when I was come again to Jerusalem, even 
while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance ; and 
saw him, saying unto me, Make haste, and get thee 
quickly out of Jerusalem : for they will not receive 
thy testimony concerning me. And I said, Lord, they 
know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue 
them that believed on thee : and when the blood of 
thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, 
and consenting unto his death, and kept the raiment 
of them that slew him. And he said unto me, depart : 
for I will send thee far hence, unto the Gentiles." 

In this trance condition Paul was clairvoyant and 
clairaudient, for he both saw and heard Jesus talk. If 
Jesus' body had been raised, it would not have been 
necessary for Paul to be entranced to see and hear him. 
Paul relates another trance he had in the following 
language: "I knew a man in Christ about fourteen 
years ago (whether in the body, I can not tell : or 
whether out of the body, I can not tell ; Gocl know- 



132 THE HEREAFTER. 

eth) : sucli an one caught up to the third heaven. 
And I knew such a man (whether in the body, or out 
of the body, I can not tell : God know eth) ; how that 
he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeak- 
able words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." 
(2 Cor. xii. 2-4.) 

If the spirit could not exist independent of the 
body, the supposition is that Paul was " in the body ; " 
and inasmuch as he can not tell whether he was or 
not, the probability is that he had an idea that he 
passed out of the body while in the trance state. 
When John refers to his being " in the Spirit on the 
Lord's day " (Rev. i. 10), he probably referred to a 
trance condition into which he had passed. The Greek, 
egenomen en pncumati, seems to imply that he had 
passed into a spiritual condition ; and I am unable to 
distinguish it from the trance. I would have the 
reader note, there never is a trance without a con- 
troller. If this controller is not in the material world, 
he must be in the spirit world. I know of certain di- 
vines not far from where I am writing, who, if they 
had the manifestations of tongues in the year 1873 in- 
stead of 33, would say it was "magnetism;" and if 
Peter should become entranced, and learn in that con- 
dition that three men had come after him to go to 
Joppa, they would give a lucid explanation of it on 
the principle of "mind-reading;" or if Paul should 
be caught away in vision to the third heaven, they 
would warn the world that "it is demonism." When 
John went forth under the control of Elijah the proph- 
et, the incensed people killed him as an enemy to 
mankind. The children of the murderers follow in 
the same footsteps, only that they semi-deify the an- 



SCEIPTUEAL EVIDENCES. 133 

cient John, who is out of their reach, and hunt for 
modern mediums like him, to make holocausts out of, 
to call forth the veneration of some coming generation 
of men. 

When Jesus went forth under this control, every 
one declared that he had a devil, and so they killed 
him. Now his admirers only want the power to kill 
everybody like him, and set on a tremendous rabble to 
howl down those who will not venerate him as a God. 

Thus far I have passed along without saying any- 
thing concerning the resurrection of Jesus. This will 
be one of the subjects of my next chapter. 



134 THE HEREAFTEB. 



CHAPTER V. 



MORE SCEIPTUKAL EVIDENCES. 

Bible Apparitions. — Samuel's Eeturn. — Testimony of Dr. Adam Clarke. — 
Moses and Elias. — Was Jesus' Body raised? — A novel Explanation. — 
Representation of Jesus' Wounds. — Similar Cases. — Jesus' Appearance to 
the Women. — Disagreement of the Witnesses. — Explanation. — On the 
Way to Emmaus. — Appearance to the Eleven. — Another Appearance. — 
Did Thomas see Jesus' Physical Body? — What is " the Comforter"? — 
Jesus' Appearance to Paul.— The two Narratives. — Paul a Pharisee. — 
Paul's View of Jesus' Resurrection. — How is Death abolished ? — Exami- 
nation of 1 Cor. xv. — Conclusion. 

" But had certain questions against him of their 
own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, 
whom Paul affirmed to be alive." (Acts xxv. 19.) 

" Some secret truths, from learned pride concealed, 
To maids alone and children are revealed. 
What, though no credit doubting wits may give, 
The fair and innocent shall still believe. 
Know, then, unnumbered spirits round thee fly, 
The light militia of the lower sky ; 
These, though unseen, are ever on the wing, 
Hang o'er the box, and hover round the ring. 
Think what an equipage thou hast in air, 
And view with scorn two pages and a chair. 
As now your own, our beings were of old, 
And once inclosed in woman's beauteous mold; 
Thence, by a soft transition, we repair 
Erom earthly vehicles to thee in air." Pope. 

APPARITIONS. 

Ocular evidence is justly considered the best in 
the world. It is admitted that the other organs may 



MOEE SCEIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 135 

be deceived ; but whenever anything is made apparent 
to the eyes, it is then considered beyond question. 
The ocular demonstrations of the present generation 
are not entirely satisfactory to persons under the influ- 
ence of the religious views of the day. Hence I must 
refer to a few demonstrations of the same kind recog- 
nized as correct by Bible makers. 

Samuel. — The first evidence of that kind I will call 
attention to is the case of Samuel (1 Sam. xxviii.), com- 
monly called the " Witch of Endor," although the text 
says nothing about a witch. This is more a case of 
clairvoyance than apparition, as no one but the medium 
saw Samuel. Her description of him, however, was 
so perfect, that Saul recognized it at once. The eva- 
sion that is made on this is, that the woman did not 
really see Samuel, although the Bible expressly says, 
" And when the woman saw Samuel, she cried with a 
loud voice : and the woman spake to Saul, saying, 
Why hast thou deceived me? for thou art Saul" 
(verse 12). No amount of denunciation of my infi- 
delity for believing this passage is thought sufficient. 
The conversation goes on after Saul had " perceived 
it was Samuel," in the most common way, the Bible 
— " our only guide from earth to heaven" — never 
stopping to tell us that the whole thing is a grand de- 
ception played off on us by the devil, or some of his 
agents, — calls him Samuel, and the other party Saul. 
If the Bible account is true, Samuel was as really 
there as was Saul ; if he was not there, it would have 
been the duty of the Bible writers to have said so. 

This one case of Samuel stands out prominent be- 
fore the world as an evidence that men do live after 
the death of the body, and can come back and demon- 



136 THE HEEEAETEE. 

strate their existence. Dr. Adam Clarke, when com- 
menting on this chapter, conld not avoid the evidence 
forced upon his attention. He said, — 

1. "I believe there is a supernatural and spiritual 
world, in which human spirits, both good and bad, 
live in a state of consciousness." . . . 3. " I be- 
lieve that any of these spirits m,ay, according to the 
order of God in the laws of their place of residence, 
have intercourse with this world, and become visible to 
mortals.'''' 

Moses and Elias. — This case is recorded in Matt, 
xvii. 1-4, as follows : — 

" And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and 
John his brother, and bringeth them up into a high 
mountain apart, and was transfigured before them ; 
and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was 
white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto 
them Moses and Elias, talking with him. Then an- 
swered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for 
us to be here : if thou wilt, let us make here three 
tabernacles ; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one 
for Elias." 

This record is clear. Moses had been in the spirit 
world nearly fifteen hundred years, and Elias h.id been 
there over nine hundred years, yet they both appeared. 
But I am told it was a vision ! ! As much as to say a 
vision is not a truth. The Bible is the result of vis- 
ions, and if they were rejected we should have noth- 
ing left on which to build oar hopes, unless we admit 
the evidences now coming from the spirit worl d. Wheth- 
er it was a vision or not, Moses and Elias actually ap- 
peared and talked with Jesus upon the mount concern- 
ing what he should suffer. I now pass to consider the 
question, 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 137 

WAS JESUS' BODY RAISED? 

I take the position it was not. 

" And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first 
came to Jesus by night), and brought a mixture of 
nryrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight. 
Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in 
linen clothes with the spices, as is the manner of the 
Jews to bury. Now in the place where he was cruci- 
fied there was a garden ; and in the garden a new sep- 
ulchre, wherein was never man laid. There laid they 
Jesus therefore because of the Jews' Preparation day ; 
for the sepulchre was nigh at hand." (John xix. 
39, 40.) 

Now here we learn that they buried Jesus in the 
garden, near the cross. But there is another bit of 
history in the preceding verse which shows that he 
was taken out of that sepulchre, and moved to Arima- 
thea. It reads, — 

" And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a dis- 
ciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, be- 
sought Pilate that he might take away the body of 
Jesus : and Pilate gave him leave. He came there- 
fore, and took the body of Jesus." 

Joseph took the body away " secretly for fear of the 
Jews." It is hardly to be supposed, then, that any one 
knew of the absence of the body, hence they supposed 
it was there. Even the women came to the garden to 
anoint the body. (Matt, xviii. 1 ; Mark xvi. 1, 2.) In 
John xx. 15, Mary supposed Jesus was the gardener, 
which demonstrates that they did not know he had 
been removed. This guard was not appointed until 
the day after his death. He was crucified and buried 
on Preparation day (Mark xv. 42), and the guard was 
put there the day after. Here is the history : — 



138 THE HEREAFTER. 

" Now tlie next day, that followed the day of the 
Preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came to- 
gether unto Pilate, saying, Sir, we remember that that 
deceiver said, while he was yet alive, after three days 
I will rise again. Command therefore that the sepul- 
chre be made sure until the third day, lest his disci- 
ples come by night and steal him away, and say unto 
the people, He is risen from the dead : so the last error 
shall be worse than the first. Pilate said unto them, 
Ye have a watch : go your way, make it as sure as ye 
can. So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, 
sealing the stone, and setting a watch." (Matt, xxvii. 
62-66.) 

So they took the trouble to seal up a sepulchre, and 
put a guard around it, while the body which they were 
so anxious to protect was seven miles away in another 
sepulchre. 

It is claimed that Jesus denied being a spirit. 

" But they were terrified and affrighted, and sup- 
posed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto 
them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts 
arise in your hearts ? Behold my hands and my feet, 
that it is I myself: handle me, and see ; for a spirit 
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." (Luke 
xxiv. 37-39.) 

There are several reflections to be taken into consid- 
eration in this passage. 

1. Their idea of a spiritual being was something 
like our ideas of phantoms. They had no fears of an- 
gels or spirits of that class ; but there were spirits 
that they did fear, who seemed to be phantoms, yet 
often portending evil, and sometimes exerting evil in- 
fluences. 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 139 

2. That class of spirits have no flesh and bones; 
that is, they are not tangible. Bnt Jesus did appear 
to be tangible to those who saw him. They saw his 
wounds. This is nothing strange ; for I have related 
a number of cases where the spirit represented the 
wounds after the death of the body. I do not think 
it would be a trespass on the patience of the reader 
for me to introduce one case from John Wesley's 
Journal, vol. hi. pp. 244, 245, London edition, 1821. 
It is given under date of June 3, 1756, and is intro- 
duced by Wesley, who states that he had received a 
letter from a minister, and gives the extract as fol- 
lows : — 

"I had the following account from the gentlewoman 
herself, a person of piety and veracity. She is now 
the wife of One J. B.« a silversmith of Cork. 

" About thirty years ago she tells that she had ex- 
pected to be married in a short time to one Richard 
Mercier, who was a volunteer in the army. He was 
compelled to move his regiment to Charleville, and 
thence to Dublin. 4 When the regiment left town, he 
promised to return in two months and marry me. 
From Charleville he went to Dublin; thence to his 
father's, and from thence to England, where, his fa- 
ther having bought him a cornetcy of horse, he pur- 
chased many arrangements for the wedding; and, 
returning to Ireland, let her know that he would be 
at her house in Charleville in a few days. On this, 
the family was busied to prepare for his reception and 
the ensuing marriage. When, one night, my sister 
Mollie and I being asleep in our bed, I was awakened 
by the sudden opening of the side curtain, and start- 
ing up, saw Mr. Mercier standing by the bedside. He 



140 THE HEREAFTER. 

was wrapped up in a loose sheet, and had a napkin, 
folded like a nightcap, on his head. He looked at me 
very earnestly, and lifting up the napkin, which much 
shaded his face, showed me the left side of his head 
all bloody and covered with his brains. The room, 
meantime was quite light. My terror was excessive, 
and it was still increased by his stooping over the bed 
and embracing me in his arms. My cries alarmed the 
whole family, who came crowding into the room. 
Upon their entrance he gently withdrew his arms, and 
ascended, as it were, through the ceiling. I continued 
for some time in strong fits. When I could speak, I 
told them what I had seen. One of them, but a day 
or two after, going to the postmaster for letters* found 
him reading the newspaper, in which was an account 
that Cornet Mercier, going into the Christ Church bel- 
fry in Dublin, just after the bells had been ringing, 
and standing under the bells, one of them, which was 
turned bottom upwards, suddenly turning again, struck 
one side of his head, and killed him on the spot. On 
farther inquiry, we found he was struck on the left 
side of the head.' " 

3. He could not have had a corporeal body, for Paul 
says, " flesh and blood can not inherit the kingdom of 
God." (1 Cor. xv. 50.) The Greek word for "see 
me have," is " theoreite," * and signifies " as I appear 
to have," just as the apparition quoted from Wesley's 
Journal appeared to have a wound in the side of the 
head. 

* The word Theoreia, according to Grove's Greek Lexicon, signi- 
fies "a look, survey, observation; theory, speculation, meditation, 
study; examination, consideration; a sight, spectacle." So we have 
no positive statement that Jesus was possessed of actual " flesh and 
bones." 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 141 

4. If it actually bad been the body of Jesus, how 
did it happen to appear in a close room, the doors 
being shut ? (John xx. 19.) 

I shall now notice the different apparitions of Jesus 
after his death, and try to establish the fact that he 
only appeared as a spirit. Let us then, in the first 
place, consider 

HIS APPEARANCE TO THE WOMEN. 

Matthew tells us, " And as they went to tell his 
disciples, behold 'Jesus met them, saying, all hail ! 
And they came and held him by the feet, and wor- 
shiped him." (Matt, xxviii. 9.) 

This was Mary and Mary Magdalene. They had 
been to see the sepulchre, and found it empty. But 
Mark tells us that " he appeared first to Mary Mag- 
dalene, out of whom he had cast seven devils." (Mark 
xvi. 9.) Luke makes no mention of the appearance of 
Jesus. He says, " And it came to pass, as they were 
much perplexed thereabout, behold two men stood by 
them in shining garments ; and as they were afraid, 
and bowed down their faces to the earth, they said unto 
them, Why seek ye the living among the dead ? He 
is not here, but is risen ; remember how he spake unto 
you when he was yet in Galilee." (Luke xxiv. 4-6.) 

Luke says it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, that saw him. John dis- 
agrees with Matthew and Luke, but agrees with 
Mark, that it was Mary Magdalene who saw Jesus. 
" She turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, 
and knew not that it was Jesus." (John xx. 14.) 

Now, why all this discrepancy of the witnesses ? 
There is a disagreement in the first place concerning 



142 THE HEREAFTEE. 

the number and names of the witnesses, and in the 
second place about what they saw, and in the third 
place where they saw it. 

1. Matthew says that it was Mary and Mary Mag- 
dalene that saw this apparition, while Mark and John 
tell us it was Mary Magdalene alone who saw it, and 
Luke would agree with Matthew, if he had not had 
another witness in the company (Joanna), not men- 
tioned by either of the other two. 

2. Matthew tells us it was on Saturday night, a 
little after sundown ; that being the end of the Sab- 
bath. But Mark tells us it was at sunrise the next 
morning. (Mark xvi. 1, 2.) John does not tell which 
was right, but leaves us to infer that it was in the 
morning, before sunrise, for "it was yet dark." (John 
xx. 1.) Again, Matthew tells us they met Jesus on 
the way. (xxviii. 9.) Mark does not say where he 
was seen, only that they did not find him about the 
sepulchre, (xvi. 9, 1-5.) But John tells us the 
women saw him in the garden, and thought it was 
the gardener. They also disagree as to who saw him, 
and the number of angels at the sepulchre. 

This is a part of the testimony brought forward to 
prove that Jesus' body was raised ; and yet the wit- 
nesses could not tell whether they saw him or some 
other angel, or whether it was not the gardener ; 
whether he was at the tomb or half way to Jerusalem. 
If they could not agree in their testimony concerning 
who, what, or where this apparition was, how are we 
to know at this distance of time. If they saw him, 
and supposed him to be an angel, is it not probable 
that they only saw his spirit body ? Let us suppose 
that these ladies were mediums, and that each one 



MOKE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 143 

saw apparitions at the several different times, and 
that amongst these apparitions one of them saw Jesus, 
and all is clear. Otherwise it is not. Each one could 
only see at the time they were clairvoyant, and as 
they were not all clairvoyant at once, all did not see 
him at the same time ; and as all were not in rapport 
with the same spirit, they each saw different spirits. 

HIS APPEARANCE ON THE WAY TO EMMAUS. 

Mark tells us, — 

" After that he appeared in another form unto two 
of them as they walked and went into the country. 
And they went and told it unto the residue : neither 
believed they them." (Mark xvi. 12, 13.) 

The question is, why could they not believe these 
two disciples, with whom they were well acquainted ? 
If the most intimate friends of the witnesses of the 
resurrection doubted their testimony, how could we 
be expected to take their testimony at this distance 
of time ? Thus it is -the whole way through, we find 
each of the disciples doubtful of the testimony of their 
brethren, and yet we are expected to swallow the 
whole thing without a doubt. Their reason for doubt- 
ing, perhaps, was fixed on the doubtful testimony. 
The Greek word phaina signifies to " bring to light, 
show, display, exhibit, lay open, reveal, disclose, make 
apparent; to give light, shine, glitter, brighten; to 
charge, accuse, complain of" (Grrove.^) Out of the 
same word grows phanomai, "to appear, be seen, be- 
come visible, to shine, sparkle ; to seem, be thought 
or supposed" {Grove), and it is translated into the 
English phenomenon. From this we gather the idea 
that he was not manifested fully to them. That this 
is the case, is evident from Luke xxiv. 15, 16. 



144 THE HEEEAFTEK. 

" And it came to pass, that, while they communed 
together, and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and 
went with them. But their eyes were holden that 
they should not know him." 

We are not informed that they saw Jesus at all. 
All we know of it is that he " drew near and went 
with them." It is possible that they saw him ; if so, 
they did not see him sufficiently distinct to recognize 
him. Nor will the Greek text give us any clearer idea 
of how they knew of his presence. The word Engiza 
signifies " to come nigh, to draw near, approach ; to 
be at hand, impend, hang over." (Grove.*) Then he 
drew near, but they had no correct ocular demonstra- 
tion of it, for their eyes were holden (affected — Greek) 
that they should not know him. As they passed along, 
however, he seemed to enter into the spirit of their con- 
versation with them. But still they failed to recognize 
him during their whole journey. In verse 31, Luke 
says, " And their eyes were opened, and they knew 
him ; and he vanished out of their sight." 

So it is really doubtful that they had seen him until 
" their eyes were opened." This is certainly poor 
evidence upon which to found a doctrine of a literal 
resurrection, especially when it is evident from the 
record that they were unable to recognize the person. 
The fact that he " vanished out of their sight," if it 
does not demonstrate a clairvoyant view, proves that 
he could have had none but a spirit body, as no other 
could dissolve out of view with such ease. 

HIS FIE ST APPEAEANCE TO THE ELEVEN. 

From the testimony thus far adduced the disciples 
saw no good reason to believe that he had been 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 145 

raised. He next appeared to the eleven disciples, 
but here the testimony was doubtful again. Luke 
says, — 

" And as they thus spoke, Jesus himself stood in 
the midst of them, and said, Peace be unto you. But 
the} T were terrified and affrighted, and supposed they 
had seen a spirit." (Luke xxiv. 86, 37.) 

If Jesus' body had appeared there, why should 
they have supposed him to be a spirit ? Mark refers 
to the same apparition, thus : — 

" Afterward he appeared to the eleven as they sat 
at meat, and upbraided them with their unbelief and 
hardness of heart, because they believed not them 
which had seen him after he was risen." (Mark 
xvi. 14.) 

If this does not show that they had reasons for 
their doubts, the following will. The fact is, they 
had only seen him as clairvoyants, and such evidence 
being of a new kind was unsatisfactory. In Matt, 
xxviii. 17, we read, " And when they saw him they 
worshiped him, but some doubted." But who 
"doubted"? Not they who saw him, certainly. 
Was ever evidence plainer that when he appeared to 
the eleven he was seen by clairvoyants, and clairvoy- 
ants only? The "some" who doubted were not 
clairvoyant, and therefore did not see him ; for if 
they had seen him they would have had no room 
for doubt. John relates this apparition (John xx. 19, 
20), and tells us that Thomas, being absent, doubted 
also when he heard the story, which would be alto- 
gether likely. If those who were present could not 
believe, he was certainly pardonable for doubting. 
The evidence of this appearance then, is just such as 
10 



146 THE HEREAFTER. 

would be likely to be given by clairvoyants concern- 
ing any spirit at the present time. In fact, clairvoy- 
ants give better evidences of spirit appearances now 
than they seemed to do at that time ; but we shall find, 
as we pass along, that the evidence grows stronger. 

HIS SECOND APPEARANCE TO THE ELEVEN 

is recorded in John xx. 26-29, where he again mani- 
fested himself. 

" And after eight days, again his disciples were 
within, and Thomas with them ; then came Jesus, the 
doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, 
Peace be unto }~ou. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach 
hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach 
hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side : and be 
not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered 
and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith 
unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou 
hast believed ; blessed are they that have not seen, 
and yet have believed." 

It seems that Thomas wanted a test, and so he 
claimed that if the clairvoyants had seen him they 
ought to have seen his wounds, and thereupon claims 
that unless he could have tangible evidence by which 
he could demonstrate the presence of Jesus, he would 
not believe. Hence Jesus offers that evidence ; but 
Thomas is satisfied without ; it is enough that he has 
seen him. But did he see Jesus' physical body? 
To me there is no evidence that he did, and there is 
considerable evidence that he did not ; for if he had, 
all the other disciples would have seen him at the 
same time. But they did not, for Jesus tells him, 
" Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed; 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 147 

blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have 
believed." There were those then present who were 
compelled to take Thomas' word for the evidence. 
The evidence that Jesus was seen only by clairvoy- 
ants not only appears in the language we have had 
under examination, but Peter positively testifies to 
his spiritual appearance in public, and yet but few 
could see him. 

" Him God raised up the third day, and showed 
him openly ; not to all the people, but unto witnesses 
chosen before of God, even to us who did eat and 
drink with him after he rose from the dead." (Acts 
x. 40, 41.) 

Thus, when he appeared he was only seen by the 
clairvoyants who were to be witnesses. Though the 
house was full, none others could see him. Jesus re- 
fers to this gift of clairvoyance in John xiv. 16-18, 22. 
After telling the disciples that he is to leave them, he 
informs them that a Comforter will come, " even the 
Spirit of truth, whom the world can not receive, be- 
cause it seetJi him not, neither knoweth him ; " but he 
gives them to understand that they shall know him ; 
this, of course, will be because they shall see him. 
That they are to see this Comforter is manifest from 
the 22d verse: " Judas saith unto him, Lord, how is it 
that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not unto 
the world?" 

But the question arises, Who is this Comforter, 
that will be manifest to the disciples, and not to the 
world? Jesus says the Comforter will not come if "I 
go not away " (xvi. 17), and that this Comforter is the 
"Holy Ghost." (xiv. 26.) The phrase "hofy ghost" 
would have been more properly translated " holy spir- 



148 THE HEREAFTER. 

it," or " good spirit," for such is the meaning of pneu- 
mati hagion. The next question would be, Who is 
this good spirit that was to be seen by his disciples ? 
We have already found he is called the " Spirit of 
truth." In John xvi. 13, we learn that this spirit of 
truth is to be a guardian angel, for he says, " he will 
guide you into all truth." The answer to this ques- 
tion may really be found in Judas' question: " Lord, 
how is it thou wilt manifest thyself unto us and not 
unto the ivorld f " Judas had conceived the idea then, 
that that Comforter which was to come was the spirit 
of Jesus ; and well he might, for while Jesus was prom- 
ising a Comforter, he used the following language : — 

" I will not leave you comfortless : I will come to 
you. Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no 
more ; but ye see me ; because I live, ye shall live also." 
(xiv. 18, 19.) This testimony is again confirmed in 
chapter xvi. 16, where he promises, " A little while, 
and ye shall not see me : and again, a little while, and 
ye shall see me, because I go unto the Father." 

Not only does the evidence appear that Jesus' spirit 
was seen after his death, but that it appeared in fulfill- 
ment of a prediction that he should come again, and 
be seen of them at a time when the world, not being 
clairvoyant, could not see him. 

HIS APPEARANCE TO PAUL. 

Before I attempt to give Paul's views on the resur- 
rection of Jesus, I must refer to the appearance of 
Jesus to him ; and as Paul and Luke disagree in some 
of the minor features, I shall give them side by side, 
that the reader may compare them together. I do not 
really think any one penned these differing accounts 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 



149 



on purpose to deceive the people. Luke, perhaps, did 
not fully understand the story, as it was related sec- 
ond hand to him. 



Luke's Testimony. 

"And as he journeyed, he came 
near Damascus : and suddenly 
there shined round about him a 
light from heaven : and he fell 
to the earth, and heard a voice 
saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why 
persecutest thou me? And he 
said, Who art thou, Lord? And 
the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom 
thou persecutest : it is hard for 
thee to kick against the pricks. 
And he, trembling and astonished, 
said, Lord what wilt thou have 
me to do? And the Lord said 
unto him, Arise, and go into the 
city, and it shall be told thee 
what thou must do. And the men 
which journeyed with him stood 
speechless, hearing a voice, but 
seeing no man." (Acts ix. 3-7.) 



Paul's Testimony. 

" And it came to pass that as 
I made my journey, and was come 
nigh unto Damascus about noon, 
suddenly there shone from heav- 
en a great light round about me, 
and I fell upon the ground, and 
heard a voice saying unto me, 
Saul, Saul, Avhy persecutest thou 
me ? And I answered, Who art 
thou, Lord? And he said unto 
me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, 
whom thou persecutest. And 
they that were with me saw in- 
deed the light, and were afraid; 
but they heard not the voice of 
him that spake to me." (Acts 
xxii. 6-10.) 



So far as the argument is concerned, I do not care 
which account is the correct one. It is enough for 
my purpose that Paul had one gift that the others had 
not. If Paul saw what the others did not see, it was 
because he was clairvoyant, and had a spiritual vision. 
If he heard what the others did not hear, it was be- 
cause he was clairaudient and heard spirit voices. 

If Paul had intended, in his narration of this event, 
to convey the idea that Jesus' dead body had been 
again raised to life, then he was very unfortunate in 
the expression of that idea, for the people thought 



150 THE HEREAFTER. 

tliat he intended to try to convince them of something 
else. Paul perceived that his audience was made up 
of the Pharisees and Sadducees ; but wishing to court 
the favor of the one part, he said, " Men and breth- 
ren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee : of the 
hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in 
question. And when he had so said, there arose a 
dissension between the Pharisees and Sadducees ; and 
the multitude was divided. For the Sadducees say 
that there is no resurrection, neither angel nor spirit ; 
but the Pharisees confess both." (Acts xxiii. 6-8.) 

This fixes the resurrection pretty plain. It would 
not do to say the Sadducees did not believe in any 
angels or spirits, for they believed the writings of 
Moses, which often told about them. But they did 
not believe that these angels and spirits were resur- 
rected persons. They did not believe in any resur- 
rection, either angel or spirits. The Pharisees confess 
both. They believed that angels and spirits were 
raised from the dead. Paul took issue with the Sad- 
ducees, and supported the doctrine of the Pharisees 
on this point. That the Pharisees so understood Paul 
is evident from the next verse. 

" And the scribes that were of the Pharisees' part, 
arose, and strove, saying, We find no evil in this man ; 
but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not 
fight against God." 

This spirit or angel in which the Pharisees believed, 
was what Paul described Jesus as being after his 
death. Who, then, can escape the conclusion, that 
when Paul saw the apparition which he claimed to 
be Jesus, he saw a spirit ? 

Although I have partially discussed the subject, I 



MOKE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 151 

will ask, and try to further answer the question, 
What was 

paul's view of the resurrection of jesus? 

Paul's opinions on this are summed up in the fol- 
lowing proposition : — 

" But is now made manifest by the appearing of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, 
and brought life and immortality to light through the 
gospel." (2 Tim. i. 10.) 

Paul is not talking about the birth of Jesus in this 
verse. The word epiphaneias signifies, according to 
Greenfield, " an appearance, the act of appearing, 
manifestation." Perhaps a more proper understand- 
ing of it would be, a sudden and unaccountable light. 
(Luke i. 79.) In 2 Thess. ii. 8. it is translated very 
faithfully revealed, and in 1 Thess. hi. 13, it is trans- 
lated coming — "at the coming of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, with all his saints ; " but this really signifies a 
sudden apparition. So, too, 1 Thess. v. 23. There 
can be no question that he is talking about the sud- 
den apparition of Jesus after his death. Tf the ap- 
pearance of Jesus in the manger had been referred to, 
there was nothing unusual manifested by that event ; 
but this appearing comes in demonstration of a truth, 
or, at least, of a hypothesis, which I hold is the theo- 
ry of immortality beyond the grave. The evidence 
that Jesus has " abolished death " appears in the fact 
that, when they killed his body, he continued to live ; 
and the evidence that he lived was found in the fact 
that he appeared after the death of his body, and 
talked with his disciples. Had the people previously 
enjoyed the light which now shines into the be- 



152 THE HEREAFTER. 

yond, there would have been no death to abolish. 
The Pharisees had a dim idea of a future life, but no 
way of demonstrating it, while the Sadducees, who 
were the materialists of the day, stoutly denied it, 
and called for a demonstration of the fact. Panl took 
sides with the Pharisees, and claimed that the fact 
had been established by the appearing of Jesus after 
his death. The death of that day, like the devil of 
the nineteenth century, existed altogether in the 
brains of theologians, and such as could be duped 
by them. The words, " brought life and immortality 
to light through the gospel," proves that " life and im- 
mortality " was a fact before the death of Jesus, as 
well as after, but it had never been " brought to 
light " until the fact had been demonstrated by the 
continued existence of Jesus after the death of his 
body. Paul never changed his Pharisaical views of 
a life hereafter ; he had always believed in a future 
life, — a life of the spirit, — and announces that his 
views were still the same. (Acts xxiii. 6-9.) 

In 1 Cor. xv. Paul devotes a whole chapter to the 
demonstration of a future life ; but he bases it all on 
the resurrection of Jesus. I have before shown that 
Jesus' resurrection was a spiritual event ; and in this 
same chapter Paul informs his- readers that the natu- 
ral body can not be raised ; that, having two bodies, 
one dies and goes to corruption, the other is raised 
(verses 38-50), and that we are manifested through 
earthly bodies first, and afterward through the spirit- 
ual. Nothing is plainer than that he looked forward 
to a future when we should only have spiritual bodies. 

Upon the re-living, or the continuation of life, the 
anastasis of this new spiritual body, Paul bases his 



MORE SCEIPTUEAL EVIDENCES. 153 

entire hope of a life hereafter. He commences, 
" For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which 
I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, ac- 
cording to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and 
rose again the third day, according to the Scriptures." 
Here, then, was the foundation of Paul's gospel. It 
was the resurrection of Jesus. This has been demon- 
strated to have been a spiritual event. If you take 
the doctrine of a future life or spiritual existence out 
of Paul's system of theology, the whole fabric will 
fall to the ground, having no foundation. It was for 
this reason that he always centers everything in the 
resurrection of Jesus. For if he could prove that 
Jesus lived after his decease in his mortal body, then 
the fact of a future life would be demonstrated. 
Now the evidence that Jesus did live after the death 
of his body was, that " he was seen of Cephas, then 
of the twelve ; after that he was seen of above five 
hundred brethren at one time ; of whom the greater 
part remain unto this present, but some are fallen 
asleep. After that he was seen of James, then of all 
the apostles, and last of all he was seen of me also, as 
one born out of due time." As there were about 
seventy apostles besides the eleven that were with 
Jesus, and Matthias, *who was elected to play that he 
had been with Jesus when he had not (Acts i. 23, 24), 
Paul, who quarreled with the apostles about his apos- 
tleship (2 Cor. xi. 13 ; Rom. xi. 13), and declared he 
was " not a whit behind the chief est apostles " (2 
Cor. xi. 5 ; xii. 11, 12), there must have been near- 
ly six hundred witnesses in all. The style of the 
argument is such that it is plain that Paul intends to 
make a test case of this one instance. The whole 



154 THE HEBE AFTER. 

issue falls upon the death, and resurrection of Jesus, 
and Paul feels confident that he can establish it upon 
that. He puts his argument in this way : — 

There is a resurrection. The doctrine of the Phar- 
isees is true. 

Proof. — Jesus was executed by the Roman soldiers, 
and seen at different intervals by different persons for 
a period of forty days after his death. The witnesses 
who saw him were, — 

1. Peter, who is well known among the Corin- 
thians, either personally or by reputation. His char- 
acter for truth and veracity will not be questioned. 

2. He was not only seen by Peter, but the balance 
of the twelve disciples have all seen him. It is not 
to be supposed that they could all agree upon a story 
which was utterly without foundation, when their 
word upon any other subject would not be questioned ; 
neither is it probable that they could all be deceived 
in the very same way. In any event there must be 
some foundation for it. 

3. He was afterward seen of above five hundred 
brethren. The difficulties in the way of its being a 
truth still continue to vanish ; for if those five hun- 
dred and thirteen individuals had agreed upon a false- 
hood, there would have been danger of one of them 
turning traitor and telling of the others, a la some of 
our Congressmen. Neither can it be supposed that 
all of them would have been deceived in precisely 
the same way. The difficulties in the way of such a 
general deception are a greater tax upon credulity 
than a belief in the resurrection. 

4. Then there were the seventy who were some- 
what known among the Corinthians as men of candor 



MORE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCES. 155 

and veracity, who were not likely to be deceived upon 
such a subject, all testifying to the same thing. But 
as they were well acquainted with the author of the 
epistles, 

5. Paul announces himself also as a witness. He 
here stakes his honor upon the resurrection of Jesus. 

I might add that these witnesses had not given in 
their testimony willingly ; for we have found that they 
were far from credulity on the subject, some of them 
even doubting, while others were declaring that he 
was even then in the room. So it can not be said that 
their previous teachings or educational bias had any- 
thing to do in working the matter upon their imagi- 
nation. Paul, though he had been raised a Pharisee, 
and should have been glad to have had such a demon- 
stration of immortality, Was so much prejudiced that 
he tried to kill all the believers in this doctrine, and 
he was only convinced himself by the apparition of 
Jesus. Such testimony as this was the best testimony 
that could be produced. In the face of this he asks : 

" Now, if Christ be preached that he rose from the 
dead, how say some among you that there is no resur- 
rection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection 
of the dead, then is Christ not risen. And if Christ 
be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your 
faith is also vain." (Verses 12-14.) 

The foundation of their faith being based on the 
resurrection, everything pertaining to the future 
hinged on the resurrection of Jesus. If there was 
no resurrection from the dead, the resurrection of Je- 
sus was of no theoretical value, and all the preaching 
of the apostles, and the persecutions endured by the 
disciples, were vain. There was no use for such a 



156 THE HEREAFTER. 

faith. It was all vain. And this is not all. Paul 
continues : — 

" Yea, and we are found false witnesses for God ; 
because we have testified of God that he raised up 
Christ ; whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead 
rise not." (Verse 15.) 

But why should they testify to such a falsehood as 
this, when they could expect no compensation other 
than persecution ending in death for it? But he con- 
tinues : — 

" For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised; 
and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are 
yet in your sins. Then they which are fallen asleep 
in Christ are perished. If in this life only we have 
hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But 
now is Christ risen and become the first fruits of them 
that slept." (Verses 16-20.) 

Thus it is seen that Paul stakes the whole subject 
on the resurrection of Jesus, and this he has fully 
demonstrated elsewhere to be a spiritual resurrection. 
After proving that there will be a resurrection, he 
proceeds to show that our present bodies never can be 
raised, but that " there is a spiritual body," a " house 
not made with hands," which will outlive the old worn- 
out casket of the present stage of existence. That 
the readers as well as the writer of this may so live 
in this world as to build up a strong and healthy 
resurrection-body, — a house in which, we will not be 
ashamed to dwell in The Hereafter, — is my earnest 
and ceaseless prayer. 



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